


A Third Kind of Madness

by talesofmaehem



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talesofmaehem/pseuds/talesofmaehem
Summary: Mundane AU. The London Institute of Fine Arts, affectionately known as the Institute by its inhabitants, is rife with creatives looking for a muse. Will, an aspiring writer, has found his. Or so he thinks. When an American transfer student gets thrown into the mix, all kinds of mayhem and shenanigans ensue.





	1. The Flight of Song

Will couldn’t say when the overture had become the chorus of his heart. He couldn’t even pin down the key shift when what he felt for James became something more than friendship. For all that Will loves to hear Jem play his violin, can understand the feelings Jem wrings from wood and string, Will is not a musician. He can’t point out a quarter note from an eighth note, hasn’t a clue what playing in half time sounds like, and although Jem has tried to explain it to him more than once, Will still isn’t sure what the difference is between a treble clef and a bass clef.

What he does know is that James plays the violin with his eyes closed.

It is, Will muses, one of the things he loves best about him. It shows the hours Jem dedicates to memorizing the music. A physical manifestation of his passion and concentration. And best of all, it gives Will the opportunity to trace his eyes over the planes of Jem’s face, the line of his throat, and the curve of his shoulder without the other boy noticing.

Will taps his pen absently against his notebook, admiring the way the autumn sunlight shimmers against Jem’s hair. Like stars on the sea, he considers. But no. Byron had already made that comparison. With a sigh, Will turns his eyes back to the few scant lines scribbled across the margin of his page. Sometimes it felt like all the words worth anything had already been written.

“Alright there William?”

Will glances up. Jem hadn’t stopped playing, hadn’t even bothered to open his eyes, but somehow he’d been able to catch the ghost of Will’s sigh. Will feels his breath catch with the realization.

“Oh, you know. Just struggling with the thoughts of dead poets. As one does in this creative hell hole.”

Jem lets out a huff of laughter and ends the piece he’d been practicing with a flourish of his bow.

Will claps generously and in return Jem gives him a mocking bow before he sets his violin gently in its case and wanders over to Will. Jem tilts his head to the side to read the title of the slim volume Will had abandoned on the table before him.

“Longfellow? I thought he was one of the ones you liked.”

Will brandishes his hand and launches into a pontification:

“ _I breathed a song into the air,_  
_It fell to earth, I knew not where;_  
_For who has sight so keen and strong,_  
_That it can follow the flight of song? "_

Jem gives a thoughtful hum, “I like that one. How does the rest of it go?”

Will hesitates. The truth is that the poem reminds Will of Jem, it is one of the reasons he likes it, but to share the whole piece with Jem feels like he’d be revealing a piece of his heart.

“I skipped the first bit," Will hedges, as though this makes the rest of the poem not worth hearing. "I didn’t know you were eager for a poetry reading or I’d have worn a nicer shirt, maybe warmed up my vocal cords.”

Jem gives him a bemused look and waits.

Will sighs, stands, and clears his throat dramatically:

_“I shot an arrow into the air,_  
_It fell to earth, I knew not where;_  
_For, so swiftly it flew, the sight_  
_Could not follow it in its flight._

_I breathed a song into the air,_  
_It fell to earth, I knew not where;_  
_For who has sight so keen and strong,_  
_That it can follow the flight of song?_

_Long, long afterward, in an oak_  
_I found the arrow, still unbroke;_  
_And the song, from beginning to end,_  
_I found again in the heart of a friend.”_

Will couldn’t help it. He had to know how James received it, what look passed over his face, whether he knew- truly knew- how Will felt about him. He held Jem’s gaze as he recited the last stanza, hoping and fearing that James would know the truth.

Jem’s face remained politely attentive and thoughtful during Will’s recital, and when the poem finished he graced Will with one of his glowing smiles.

“Lovely William, you’d make a fine orator if you ever gave up this writing business.”

Will feels his heart sink.

“And what did you think of Longfellow?” Will ventures.

Jem paused and although they had never needed words to share a joke, Will can’t read the look Jem gives him.

“I liked it,” he finally admits, “Especially the part about the song and finding it again. It reminded me- well it reminded me a bit of you and me.”

Jem ducks his head at this last confession, as though he were embarrassed to say it. As if Will might misinterpret it as something more than friendship. Will feels his heart sink further, but he plasters on a bright grin and throws an arm around Jem’s shoulders.

“My thoughts exactly James! It’s as though you know the words of my heart before I dare to speak them.”

Jem’s laugh doesn’t ring quite as brightly as it usually does at Will’s antics, but he leans in to Will’s arm for a moment before bumping his shoulder into Will and pulling away. It was almost enough to make the hollow feeling in Will’s chest worth it.

“Come on Will, take a break. Being stuck in the mind of dead poets for this long can’t be good for you. Why don’t we go visit six-fingered Nigel? I know how he always cheers you up.”

Will throws a rude gesture at Jem, but the effect is lessened by the genuine grin tugging at his mouth. Maybe, Will considers, it doesn’t matter if his love is unrequited. As long as he could do this, could be near Jem, laugh with him, listen to his music, maybe it would be enough. Will would always want more, but he didn’t have enough pride to stop himself from taking what he could get. If this was all Jem was willing to give him, he would whisper thanks to the stars each night for every moment they shared.

“Grab a sweater Carstairs, first drink is on me.”

Jem’s answering grin is full of mischief and Will feels his own smile grow. He loves that Jem shares this wild side of himself with Will. He's usually so responsible and careful, that really it is more Will’s duty than anything to ensure his best friend and flat mate has a little fun. And while he might not be able to give Jem other things, no matter how much he wants to, fun is something he can do.

“You’re on Herondale.”

The two boys jostle and joke, falling in to their usual easy rhythm as they throw on sweaters and head out in to the crisp autumn breeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to thecoquimonster who always leaves a review- it means a lot :)
> 
> The poem Will recites is The Arrow and the Song by Longfellow.
> 
> PS. All hail Cassandra Clare for the creation of these characters. I adore them and I still can't think about them without getting all emotional.


	2. The Mermaid Tavern

The Mermaid Tavern is packed when they get there. Term hasn’t officially started, so most of the students are out enjoying their last evening of freedom before they succumb to deadlines and the vague impending sense of urgency that seem to loom over campus once classes begin.

Jem and Will maneuver their way through the crowd, Jem splitting off to find a table while Will orders their drinks from the bar. Jem snags a pair of seats and a small wooden table shoved against the wall. He tucks himself in to one of the chairs and lets his eyes rove over the crowd seeking, as they always do, a mass of dark curls. There. Will had managed to shove his way to the bar and is gesturing emphatically to Six-fingered Nigel in an attempt to be understood over the noise. Jem gives himself a small shake of his head. He can’t believe he’d said those things to Will. _How_ he’d said those things to Will. _Especially the part about the song and finding it again. It reminded me- well it reminded me a bit of you and me._ Honestly. He’d sounded like a stuttering idiot. He had meant it, of course. In every context of the words.

Will _was_ his best friend, and it was true that he often felt the song of his soul had found it’s harmony with Will’s, but Jem was beginning to suspect that what he felt for Will might be more than friendship. Actually, if he was honest with himself, he was sure it was more than friendship. Surely friends didn’t daydream about what it would be like to run their fingers through the other’s hair? He’d thought about confessing to Will a thousand different ways, but each time he found he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t risk losing Will altogether for the chance of having something more. Will meant too much to him. Besides, look how Will had reacted to his latest confession. He clearly saw Jem only as a friend.

Jem shoves away his bitterness and lets his eyes trail around the pub’s other occupants. Will is talking to a tan man with spiked, glittery hair at the bar and beside them Bridget and Cyril, two other musicians, are chatting over a pint. A sandy haired boy is buying a drink for a delicate-looking blonde while another girl, presumably a friend of the blonde, looks on. Jem finds himself staring at this girl. It isn’t the way her long brown hair falls in soft waves and curls, or even the way her gray sweater hugs her body and makes her large gray eyes look grayer that strikes him first. No, he is struck first by how lonely the girl looks as she watches the other two. It is, Jem assumes, how he would look if he didn’t have Will.

He is shaken from these thoughts by the devil himself, who plops a drink down in front of him and proceeds to throw himself into the opposite chair.

“Well,” Will declares, “Six-fingered Nigel definitely still remembers last time.”

“You mean the time you assaulted Gabriel Lightwood, nearly incited a brawl, and got us banned for three months?”

“First of all, I did not ‘assault’ Gabriel Lightwood. I was merely correcting his erroneous opinion that because he goes to that insipid business school he is better than all of us ‘creative rabble’ at the Institute. And secondly, if I intended to incite a brawl, I would not stop at ‘nearly.’ There would be chaos in the streets. Broken windows. Bloodshed. Not a few black eyes and a single broken arm,” Will sniffed.

Jem lets out a huff of laughter, “You’re impossible William.”

As the night wares on, Jem feels himself fall back into the steady rhythm of Will’s company. They laugh and drink and despite Jem’s fumbling attempt at honesty earlier, the night passes as it usually would. Or it would have, except that as the hours slip by Jem finds his eyes repeatedly drawn to the lonely girl.

After a steady rate of intoxication, William had stumbled out of his chair and leapt, surprisingly agilely, on top of a table to lead a raucous chorus of bawdy drinking songs. Jem has just risen to try and extract Will before he gets them permanently banned from the tavern when he catches sight of the blonde girl and her companion grinding on the makeshift dance floor. His eyes dart back to the lonely girl. A dark-haired man has sidled up to her, leaning against the bar and invading her personal space. She sits rigidly on her stool and keeps glancing back towards the blonde, but clearly no chance of rescue is coming from that quarter. She looks severely uncomfortable.

Jem makes a split-second decision and changes his course.

“Sorry I’m late, love,” Jem says breaking in to their conversation.

 He can’t believe he’s doing this.

The girl turns to look at him in surprise. The dark-haired man scowls. Jem ignores him and shoots the girl a questioning glance and an encouraging smile. He hopes it’s overall effect conveys his intended message: _Are you alright? Is this ok?_ And not something more along the lines of: _I am a homicidal maniac here to lure you to your death._ After all, maybe she knows this man. Maybe he’d misinterpreted the whole situation.

She gives him a relieved smile.

“That’s alright,” she says, “Mortmain here was just telling me all about how serious it is at the London School of Economics.” She turned to face the dark-haired man, evidently called Mortmain. “You should probably call it a night if you have so much work to do in the morning, don’t you think? I’ll be fine now that—” she hesitates, clearly not knowing what to call Jem, and he tenses in anticipation of Mortmain’s reaction, but the girl recovers quickly. “My boyfriend is here,” she finishes and sends the man a cool smile. Mortmain for his part, shoots Jem a dirty look and leaves without so much as a goodbye.

“I’m sorry about that,” Jem says as he watches Mortmain’s back retreat into the crowd that, by now, Will has whipped into a swaying tide of off-key singing. “I hope you won’t think I was being presumptuous, although I’m sure I was.” He offers her an apologetic smile.

Her laugh sends a little pulse of warmth through his veins.

“I should be thanking you. Mortmain is one of my brother’s more odious friends,” she says, gesturing to where the blonde girl is tangling her fingers in her partner’s hair as they rub against each other in what Jem doesn’t think really classifies as dancing.

The girl makes a disgusted face, “And Jessie, my roommate, would probably tell me I was missing out on a fabulous catch because he comes from a wealthy family.”

Jem frowns. “Surely they wouldn’t have left you with him all night. Not if they knew how you feel about him?”

The girl grimaces. “Nate and Jessamine…” she trails off and waves her hand vaguely as if to summarize some point she’d made. “They have certain ideas of how the world should be, and if the facts don’t fit that image then they ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.”

Jem turns back to the girl before him.

“Well that won’t do. Are you planning on staying out much later? You could join me- if you want,” he adds hastily.

She glances back to her brother and roommate still going strong on the dance floor. She nods once, as if confirming some point to herself, and turns back to James, a determined look on her face.

“I think I’d like that.”

He feels the radiant smile that lights up his face.

“I’m James. James Carstairs,” he says, realizing he hasn’t yet introduced himself, “but you can call me Jem.”

“Jem.” She sounds like she is testing the name, determining if she likes the shape of it in her mouth.

He hopes she does.

Apparently, she finds it satisfactory because a quiet smile plays across her lips and she sticks her hand out to him. “Pleased to meet you Jem. I’m Tessa Gray.”

He takes her hand.

“Tessa.”

The name sounds right on his tongue. Like a whisper or a secret. He doesn’t know what is making him so bold tonight- whether it’s his failure to be honest with Will, or the alcohol he’s imbibed, or his current rate of success with the pretty girl before him- but he brings her hand to his lips and places a chaste kiss to it.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

A blush spreads across her cheeks at his gesture, but she laughs it off and hops from her stool to follow him back to his table.

The hours fly by as Jem finds himself absorbed in discussion with Tessa. She’s from America, a transfer student to the Institute studying publishing. She’s received a full scholarship to attend for her final two years and is eager to see London. Her brother, Nate, attends the London School of Economics. He’d promised to show her around, but so far the only sights she’d seen with him had consisted primarily of seedy pubs and third wheeling on dates with him and Jessamine.

“Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking introducing them to each other. Jessamine is desperate for love and Nate wants respect and power. Something he thinks Jessamine’s family name will give him. Apparently her family owns some posh clothing line or something. Lovelace Bridal, I think?”

She shrugs and takes another sip of the drink Jem had bought her.

“What about you? I feel like I’ve been yammering on for ages. You were here with someone else weren’t you?”

Jem feels his cheeks flush. So, she had noticed him too then. Jem nods towards where Will is dashing madly over the tops of tables, evading the cursing figure of Six-fingered Nigel who chases after him.

“Regrettably, my best friend and rather disreputable other half.”

Tessa watches, amused, as Will clambers onto the billiards table and begins reciting terrible poetry while dancing out of Nigel’s reach.

_“Souls of Poets dead and gone,_  
_What Elysium have ye known,_  
 _Happy field or mossy cavern,_  
 _Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?”_

He stumbles over a stray billiards ball and catches himself on the head of one of the players.

_“ Have ye tippled drink more fine_  
_Than mine host's Canary wine?_  
 _Surely ye’ve had no better eat_  
 _Than mine host’s three-week-old meat!”_

Tessa lets out a light breath of laughter. “Now he’s just making it up.”

“You mean he wasn’t before?” Jem’s look is amused.

“Well it was John Keats, _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern._ Not a particularly inspiring piece of poetry, but I have to say I’m impressed. That’s astonishingly good memory for his level of intoxication.”

Jem grins at her, “Will is rarely as intoxicated as he looks.” He turns to surveys the pile of empty drinks glasses on the table. “But in this case, he may have had a few too many,” he concedes.

Will leaps from the billiards table and dashes across the room, darting between dancers and scrambling onto the bar, shouting:

_“He’s the proprietor of the Mermaid Tavern_  
_He can wear more rings than Saturn._  
 _No one can boast a lover more agile_  
 _Than my beloved six-fingered Nigel!”_

“You know, I’m not convinced ‘agile’ and ‘Nigel’ really rhyme,” Tessa muses.

Jem nods his agreement. “He’s a notoriously awful poet. Really excellent prose though, when he’s trying.”

The two of them watch as Nigel lunges at Will, sending the boy teetering precariously along the edge of the bar as he backs just out of reach.

Jem sighs. “I should probably go get him before Nigel hurts himself.”

Tessa gives him a bright smile. “Well thank you again for the rescue James. Jem. I hope I’ll see you around sometime?”

She asks it like a question and Jem smiles radiantly back.

“I’d like that.”

A loud crash echoes across the pub and Jem flinches.

“Though, probably not here, as I suspect William has just gotten us banned for life.”

Tessa laughs, “It was brilliant meeting you James Carstairs.”

Jem reaches for one of the less soggy napkins that litter the table and pats his pocket looking for a pen but comes up empty.

“You don’t happen to have a pen do you?”

Tessa shakes her head, bemused.

Jem sighs and shouts across the pub, “WILLIAM, DO YOU HAVE A PEN?”

There’s a brief sound of struggle and then, “OF COURSE I HAVE A PEN CARSTAIRS, I’M A BLOODY POET AREN’T I?”

A moment later a pen comes flying across the room, hitting the wall and bouncing against Jem’s ducked head. He rubs the spot ruefully and gives Tessa an embarrassed look.

“Ten pounds says he did that on purpose to annoy me.”

“Seems a rather astounding level of accuracy for someone pinned to the floor by a four-foot-tall bar tender.”

Jem laughs and finishes scrawling out his number.

“Let me know you got home okay, yeah? Or Will and I could walk you home if you’d like.”

He looks dubiously towards where Will is being forcibly removed from the premises. Tessa turns to locate Jessamine, finding her drunkenly sprawled on Nate’s lap.

“I’ll be alright. I should make sure Jessie gets home okay anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Jem looks uncertainly between a struggling Will and Jessamine’s entangled limbs.

“Nate will walk us back.”

Jem nods slowly. “If you’re sure.”

Tessa smiles and rests her hand on his arm, “I’m sure.”

Jem nods once more, then takes her hand and places another light kiss to her knuckles.

“Goodnight Tessa Gray.”

Then he heads towards the struggling forms of Will and Nigel.

Tessa watches as he makes placating gestures towards the irate bar tender and grabs his best friend by the shoulders, tugging him towards the door. He looks up, just before they leave, and his eyes find hers.

He smiles and then the two boys disappear back into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you interested in the legitimate version of the poem, it is called Lines on the Mermaid Tavern by John Keats. Although I hope you've enjoyed my rather terrible rendition of it here :P


	3. Down the Rabbit Hole

Tessa toys with her phone while waiting at a crosswalk, opening her messages for what feels like the hundredth time that morning.

_1:15  Made it home safe, drunk roommate and all :)_

**_1:18  I’m glad :)_ **   
**_1:18  Hope Jessamine wasn’t as bad as Will_**   
**_1:19  He made us stop by the pond to make sure no innocent park goers had been mauled by ducks._ **

_1:20  I had no idea the British ducks were so bloodthirsty.  
1:20  Were there many victims?_

**_1:24  Only Will  
1:25  He mistook a swan for a particularly large duck and it took offence. _ **

_1:30  Well I’m glad you were there to save him.  
1:31  You’re a regular knight in shining armor James Carstairs._

He hadn’t replied after that.

Tessa hopes it was because he had fallen asleep and not because she’d made things awkward. It was still early in the morning, so it’s possible he wasn’t awake yet.

The crosswalk signals for the swarm of milling pedestrians to walk and Tessa gets swept along with the crowd. She has fifteen minutes until her first class starts and if she doesn’t hurry she’ll be late. She had wandered around the Institute that weekend, locating all of her classrooms and familiarizing herself with the grounds, so rationally, she knows she should be fine. But still. She wants to make a good impression.

She pushes her way into the old stone building. The main hall has a huge cathedral ceiling and Tessa takes a moment to stare around her in wonder. She can’t believe that she’s here. That she actually made it.

The Institute is the only dream she can remember pursuing for herself. She’d toiled through two years of public university back home, all while waiting tables and working night shifts to support Aunt Harriet. She’d had a single poster in her closet of a room, a recruitment poster from the Institute with a picture of this very space on it. The vast arched ceiling and the sweep of the grand staircase leading to the upper levels all bathed in the rainbow of color that drips from the stained-glass windows. And Tessa is here, standing in the middle of all of it.

She can feel the smile that spills across her face. She is sure she looks like an idiot, grinning at nothing, but she can’t help it. Aunt Harriett would be proud.

Tessa glances at her phone again and gapes at the time. She only has three minutes to get to class. She hurries up the sweeping staircase, taking the steps two at a time and walks quickly down the hall. All the doors look the same. She looks at the note she’d written herself; _East Wing, Rm 32B._ Is she even in the East Wing? She tries to remember the way she’d gone last time. Hadn’t there been another staircase? Tessa hurries down the hallway towards a dark wooden door she vaguely remembers passing through.

Just as she reaches to open it, the door flies open and crashes into her. She lets out a curse Aunt Harriett would be shocked that she knew, and finds herself rather gracelessly flung amid a pile of books and flying papers. Words float past her, but she doesn’t recognize them. She momentarily considers whether she’s suffered a concussion.

“My God, are you alright?”

Tessa looks up to find a pair of startlingly blue eyes looking down at her.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve been dashing about mad as the March Hare.” The boy reaches out a hand to help pull her up. She takes it dazedly. There is something familiar about him that nags at her memory.

“Are you hurt?”

Tessa shakes her head. Where are her words?

The boy begins gathering up the mess of books and papers, muttering again in that language Tessa doesn’t recognize. At least now she can distinguish it as another language and not just a head injury.

“You mean the White Rabbit.”

The boy looks at her confused, and Tessa thinks maybe she did suffer a concussion after all.

“What?”

“In _Alice in Wonderland_ , it’s the White Rabbit that’s always dashing about. The March Hare just sits around and drinks tea.”

The boy gives her a crooked grin and she bends to help sort through their books. He picks up one book and then an identical copy, studying their covers. He hands her the less battered one.

“Are you in Starkweather’s class?”

She looks at him in surprise.

“How did you know?”

The boy shows her the book in his hands. It is a much more worn copy of _Great Expectations_ than the one he had handed to her.

"Most people don't just carry _Great Expectations_ around for fun." The boy glances at his watch and says something Tessa assumes is a curse.

“What language is that? You said something in it earlier.”

“Welsh,” he finishes shoving his books and papers into his bag and chuckles. “It’s a good thing you can’t understand me, or my mother would have a conniption. It wasn't something a gentleman should say in front of a lady.”

Tessa snorts.  “What is this, the 1800s? People curse in front of women all the time.”

The boy reaches out to help her up again.

“But not,” he smirks, “a gentleman.”

When he pulls her up, she finds he is very close to her. Or perhaps she is very close to him. Close enough to smell the pine fresh scent of his deodorant and the coffee on his breath. She finds herself looking up at him, which doesn’t happen often as she has always been tall, but his chin is tilted down towards her and his eyes are wide with recognition.

“You’re the girl James was with last night.”

Tessa blinks at him.

“Will,” she says as his face clicks into place in her memory.

He pulls back at the sound of his name and they are suddenly a socially appropriate distance from each other again. Will glances at his watch.

“Shit, we’re going to be late. Starkweather is going to kill me.”

Tessa smiles at him, bemused.

“What happened to not cursing in front of ladies?”

“Well,” he shoots her a roguish grin, “I’m a woeful excuse of a gentleman.”

Then he nods his head in the opposite direction of the door, down a hallway Tessa hadn’t noticed but which she thought she half remembered.

“Come on, I’ll show you the way to class.”

 

* * *

 

“Ah, glad you could deign to join us Mr. Herondale. I hope your personal invitation didn’t lose its way in the post?”

Tessa grimaces as she slips in behind Will.

“Not to worry Professor Starkweather, it came right along with the Queen’s invitation to tea. But of course, I regretfully declined Her Majesty’s request for my company, ensuring her my presence was much more necessary here.”

A few breathy chuckles circulate around the classroom, hidden behind hands and masquerading as coughs. The professor, an elderly gentleman who had clearly been a towering figure in his youth, glares at the classroom. The coughs immediately silence. He turns back towards Will, no doubt to reprimand him further, when his eyes settle on Tessa just behind him.

“And you must be the new transfer student, Miss…”

“Gray,” Tessa supplies, “Tessa Gray.”

Professor Starkweather nods gruffly and gestures to an open seat.

“Sit. We will excuse tardiness this once, Miss Gray, as you are still familiarizing yourself with the Institute. Do not let it happen again.”

Tessa nods, feeling the blush burn hot against her cheeks. She slips into an open seat and feels Will settle into the seat behind her.

Professor Starkweather clears his throat. “As I was saying before Mr. Herondale graced us with his presence- I am Professor Starkweather and welcome to Victorian Literature. This is my graduate teaching assistant, Mr. Bane,” here he gestures to a tan man with spikey black hair and a charming smile. “If you have any questions, I encourage you to inquire of Mr. Bane first. While, as a graduate student, he is less knowledgeable, his time is more conveniently manipulated and my office hours will be severely limited.”

Mr. Bane’s smile leans slightly more towards a grimace.

“Ass,” she hears Will mumble behind her and personally Tessa finds that she agrees.

Nevertheless, Tessa pulls out her notebook and syllabus, taking notes as Professor Starkweather drones on about the first essay assignment, additional reading materials, and expectations for the course. An hour and a half later, Tessa is rubbing the ache from her hands as she packs away her notebook and pens. The other students are booking it for the door, but a lithe form hops over the chair next to her and plops down into it.

“So,” the familiar voice drawls, “what did you think of cheery old Starkweather?”

Tessa turns to Will and gives him a disapproving frown.

“I think you rile him on purpose.”

Will doesn’t deny it; “He makes it so easy, and I am hardly one to resist temptation.”

“No, lucky for Six-fingered Nigel though, I'm sure.”

“Ah, yes," Will grimaces, "I suppose you would have seen that performance last night.”

“A rather terrible rendition of Keats’ poem I have to say.”

Will puts a hand to his chest, offended.

“Terrible? It was terrible to begin with! I was clearly enhancing it.”

Tessa tries to suppress her smile, but by the look of triumph on Will’s face she does a terrible job at it.

“There,” he says smugly, “I knew you preferred my version. It’s clearly the superior.”

Tessa throws the last of her things into her bag and stands. Will stands too, blocking her exit.

“Do you have another class?”

“Publishing and Fieldwork, but not until three. You?”

“I’m done for the day. Do you want to grab lunch?”

Tessa considers. She doesn’t know any of the good places to get lunch near the Institute, and Will is a friend of Jem’s so surely he can’t be too bad, right? Besides, she convinces herself, it wasn’t like it was a date, and she could use the opportunity to learn more about Jem. She needed to make more friends anyway. If she had to third wheel on a date with Nate and Jessie again she was going to puke.

“Alright,” she agrees, “but only if you can explain why on earth you adore _Great Expectations_. It’s clearly one of Dickens’s lesser works.”

Will raises an eyebrow, “First of all, you’re wrong, and secondly, who says I adore _Great Expectations_?”

“Your copy of it looks like you’ve slept with it since you were six.”

“Six? Five at least. And what if I bought it secondhand?”

Tessa raises her eyebrows in return.

“Did you?”

“No.”

Will’s grin is ridiculous and it makes Tessa smile back despite herself. Her attention is stolen by a figure which claps Will on the shoulder.

“Alright, William?”

Will turns his smile on the newcomer.

“Never better, Mr. Bane.”

The graduate student makes a face at Will and he laughs.

“Tessa, this is Magnus Bane. Magnus, Tessa.”

Magnus gives a friendly smile and tips an imaginary hat, Tessa nods back.

“Tess and I were just going to grab some lunch, want to come?”

Tessa feels something thrill through her at the use of the name Tess. No one ever calls her that. She has always been Tessa, or Theresa if she was in trouble, or Tessie if Nate was feeling affectionate. Never Tess. She thinks, momentarily, that she should feel indignant at the familiarity, given that she had not invited him to call her that, but she finds that she doesn’t. She thinks she might even like it.

“Where are you going?” Magnus asks.

“Old Mol’s?”

“Will," Magnus groans, "she has terrible food. She sets up next to a graveyard. Probably because the taste buds of everyone who's ever eaten there immediately want to die.”

Tessa shoots Will an inquiring look.

“Old Mol runs a fish and chips stand. It’s not that bad,” Will adds defensively.

“It’s horrible. I know at least five people who got food poisoning there this week,” Magnus insists.

“It’s only Monday,” Tessa informs him.

“You see William? She gets my point,” he says loftily.

Will scowls. “Fine. Sophie’s then?”

Magnus hums in approval. “Yes, Sophie makes excellent scones.”

Will throws up his hands and nudges Magnus back so he can escape the row of chairs and let Tessa out.

“Sophie’s it is then.”

The trio bustle out of the Institute and Tessa lets herself be led by Will and Magnus to a small stone café tucked between two modern buildings on a quieter side street. An ironwork sign above the entrance reads ‘Clave & Council,’ but the window is painted with ‘BAKERY’ in bright white letters and the smells wafting out of the building are heavenly.

“Why did you call it Sophie’s?” Tessa asks, gesturing to the large iron scrollwork.

“It used to be a law office,” Will informs her, “until Sophie bought it and converted it into a bakery. Its customers are generally much happier nowadays,” he adds conspiratorially.

The three of them step in to the warm building and grab a small table hardly big enough for all of them to sit at. They go up to the counter to place their orders and a pretty girl with a scar down one side of her face tells them she’ll bring their orders out.

“Do you know what happened to her?” Tessa asks after they’ve all settled back into their chairs. 

“That’s Sophie," Will shrugs, "She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Tessa bites her tongue on more questions, figuring it would be rude to ask.

“She’s good friends with Jem,” Will continues. “Sophie heard him playing on the street and tried to give him money, which of course he wouldn’t take.”

There is humor in Will’s voice and Tessa smiles to hear the affectionate way he talks about his friend.

“Have you known each other long?”

“Me and Jem?” Will asks, surprised.

Tessa nods.

“Since we were twelve,” Will shrugs, “We went to boarding school together.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Tessa decides to drop the subject. It feels weird talking about Jem without him there. Instead she asks about the Institute and the classes they’d taken. Magnus steers the conversation towards books and movies, and soon the three of them are arguing passionately about which is the best Harry Potter film and whether any other book to movie adaptation is comparable. The time passes quickly and Tessa is surprised when Will tells her she’ll have to hurry to make it to her class on time. She throws on her scarf and coat, waving to the boys as she makes her way to the exit.

Tessa feels the smile lingering on her face reflected in the warm feeling in her chest. Happiness, she realizes. She’s truly happy. With the exception of Professor Starkweather's black mood, it might be the best day she’s had in London. Jem’s smiling face flashes before her eyes and she immediately feels a twinge of guilt. She reaches into her pocket and pulls up her messages on her phone.

Still nothing.

She shakes her head and chastises herself. Clearly, Jem had only been acting friendly the other night. He had been a good person, saving her from the unwanted attentions of Mortmain, but that was all. She pushes the thoughts away and hurries off to class trying to recall the happy feeling that had blossomed in her chest just moments earlier. She doesn’t quite succeed.


	4. The Echo Between Us

The truth was Will had been curious. Well alright, first he had been a clumsy fool- almost knocking the poor girl unconscious- but _then_ he had been curious. Once he’d recognized her that is. It hadn’t been until he’d helped her stand and found her practically in his arms that he’d remembered her. Her open face tilted up to him and her grey eyes wide and curious. He wanted to know what it was Jem saw in her, that he would rather spend the evening conversing with _her_ than rescuing Will from his increasingly ridiculous hairbrained schemes. Because of course Will hadn’t _really_ been intoxicated when he’d decided to sprint wildly over tables making up ridiculous poems about Six-fingered Nigel. Will was willing to grant that he may have been slightly inebriated, but it was hardly the same thing.

At any rate, it had seemed like a perfectly rational way to reclaim Jem’s attention at the time.

It was somewhat discouraging that it had taken Six-fingered Nigel tackling Will off the bar and wrestling him to the floor to steal Jem’s attention back from the bewitching usurper. And even then, James had had the audacity to ask Will whether he had a pen on his person.

This was particularly insulting as Will had often and vocally proclaimed what a travesty it was for a writer to be without a writing implement constantly at hand, and secondly because he knew that Jem only wanted one so he could give the girl his number- not so that he could pour out his feeling for Will in verse, or preferably rhyming couplet.  

Still, Will had given him the pen. It might have been more accurate to say he chucked it vengefully at Jem’s head and watched with satisfaction as it hit its mark but that made Will sound petty, which he detested, no matter how accurate it was.

Either way, Will had given him the pen because if he could not makes James happy, maybe this girl could. But when she had so conveniently fallen into his path, quite literally at that, he couldn’t resist. He told himself it wasn’t that she was pretty, or clever, or had good taste in books (he had found a copy of _The Book Thief_ among their scattered things with worn pages that he did not think was for any class) that had made him sit behind her. It was not her lovely grey eyes and lonely expression that made him invite her to lunch. It was curiosity, he assured himself, and hurriedly shoved the thoughts away so he couldn’t look at them too closely.

That had been almost two weeks ago, and since then Will had fallen into a comfortable routine of grabbing lunch with Tessa after class, of meeting up in the library to discuss their papers, or the reading, or books in general. Sometimes they were joined by Magnus, when he wasn’t going over papers with a dozen literature students too afraid to approach their professor or immersed in his own research. Will wasn’t actually sure what it was Magnus was studying. Evidently something involving obscure texts and foreign films and copious amounts of hair glitter.

But mostly it was Will and Tessa. He found that he could banter with her, that she was quick and clever and curious. Things had spiraled until eventually Will realized that his motives had moved beyond curiosity. He found himself trying to make her laugh. He made absurd arguments just so that he could listen to her passionate voice refuting him. He read books she recommended so they’d always have something to discuss and she in turn read the stories he loved. Somehow, he realized, they’d become friends. There were even a handful of dizzying moments when he thought they might be flirting. But surely that was absurd. They were both clearly enamored with Jem.

Jem.

Will winces. He still hadn’t told Jem about befriending Tessa. What was he supposed to say?

_Hey Jem, remember that girl you were flirting with at The Mermaid the other night? Well I ran her over in the hallway and decided to befriend her so I could determine what your taste is in romantic partners. But it turns out she’s actually amazing and I totally see why you like her, and now I’m super conflicted because she’s clearly into you, but I am also into you and I was here first, but I think you could make each other happy and that’s all I want for both of you._

Will sighs and closes his eyes, resting his head against the table. When had everything become so complicated?

He is startled by the sound of someone settling into the seat opposite him. He looks up and there is Jem, smiling at him like he can’t believe his good fortune to have found Will here of all places, as if they haven’t been coming to Sophie’s every Friday for the past three years. Will glances at his watch.

“You’re early.”

Jem raises an eyebrow, a laugh playing around the corners of his mouth.

“Would you prefer it if I left and came back?”

Will pretends to consider it, “I suppose I can put up with you for an extra 15 minutes,” he concedes graciously.

Jem smiles and nudges a mug towards him.

“What’s this?”

“Hot chocolate. Sophie’s special,” Jem elaborates.

Sophie’s special is a thing of beauty and usually Will makes himself work for them. He couldn’t count the number of essays that had ended with him sitting at one of these worn tables, an identical mug cupped in his hands. The large mug is filled with rich hot cocoa and a towering pile of whipped cream sprinkled with chunks of shortbread and a caramel drizzle. Will’s stomach grumbles loudly.

He had been sitting in Sophie’s bakery for the past 45 minutes and could have easily gotten a hot chocolate for himself while he waited. In fact, it was a bit ridiculous that Jem had gotten him one at all considering the counter was literally ten feet away. But Will had been absorbed in his poetry assignment and struggling with his internal crisis over Tessa, and Jem had always been able to tell when Will was too caught up in his own head.

“I could kiss you Carstairs,” Will moans with exaggerated pleasure.

Was it just his imagination, or was Jem blushing? But no. Surely his cheeks were only tinged with the cold autumn air.

Will reaches for the mug and his hand skims Jem’s on the handle. Will’s fingers tingle with the contact. He sneaks another glance at Jem, but the other boy has drawn his hand back into his pocket and looks remarkably unfazed. Of course Jem is unfazed, he’s clearly got something going on with Tessa, Will reminds himself.

And now Jem is sitting before him, bearing hot chocolate, and Will doesn’t know how to act. He’s never been uncertain around James before. Jem has always been the only person with whom he felt truly himself.

“Thanks,” Will offers, remembering his manners and shoots Jem a smile. But it feels false on his face and Jem must think so too because his eyebrows draw closer to a frown.  

Will sips the hot chocolate to mask his grimace and carries on.

“Well, since you’re early, you’ll have to help me with this poem I’m writing for my workshop.”

“And what is this poem about?”

“What all poetry is about James,” Will says grandly, “truth, emotion, the human experience,” a beat, then, “the heart.”

“Ah, of course,” Jem nods sagely, “how could I have thought otherwise? Read me what you’ve got.”

Will braces himself and begins.

_“It started with shadows,_  
_Mine and yours,_  
_Blurring together_  
_On twilight walls_  
_Until it was not yours,_  
_Or mine,_  
_But ours._

_You were_  
_Across the room_  
_Weaving moonlit_  
_Melodies,_  
_But in the eyes_  
_Of the sun_  
_There was no space_  
_To echo between us_  
_And I wished,_  
_Above all,_  
_It were true.”_

Silence.

When Will gathers up the courage to look at Jem, he finds the other boy is staring at him. Will can’t decide what kind of stare it is, so he settles for blinking innocently at James and trying not to blush.

Of course the poem was about Jem. Who else could it be?

He wants Jem to know how he feels about him.

He doesn’t want to tell him.

The two emotions war within Will and still Jem says nothing. Will feels the silence crawling over him. He’s offended James. Jem knows how he feels and now he’s trying to figure out how to tell Will that he doesn’t think of him like that. That there will always be enough distance for a thousand echoes between them. That Will has made it worse. That James is seeing Tessa.

Tessa, Will thinks guiltily.

What was he doing? Tessa is his friend and clearly smitten with Jem, and Jem means the world to Will. If Jem is happy with Tessa, doesn’t he deserve to have that? Don’t they both? Nothing good could come of telling Jem of his true feelings, he is sure of it.

Still the silence lingers.

Will clears his throat.

“Clearly it’s still a work in progress. I know it’s rough, I should probably just throw it all out and start again. Clean slate and all that,” Will rambles.

“It didn’t rhyme,” Jem cuts in.

Will takes a moment to let that sink in.

“What?”

“Your poem. It didn’t rhyme.”

“Not all poetry has to rhyme James.”

“Yours do. Your poems always rhyme.”

“I was trying something new.”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmm? Hmmm what?”

“Your professor made you stop rhyming, didn’t they?”

Will lets out a dramatic sigh.

“Yes, fine James, you’re absolutely right. The professor threatened to cut out my tongue if I made any more of that ‘dreadful rhyming drabble’ as she so blithely put it.”

Jem chuckles and shakes his head.

“I rather like your dreadful rhymes William.”

Will’s heart trips in his chest.

“But I suppose,” Jem continues, “that if your rhymes are being underappreciated, then this piece does well enough without them.”

“Well enough?” Will scowls. “That’s Jem terminology for you hated it. I thought it might be overwrought. Was it the echo line that did it, or the sun?”

“Will—”

“The sun, I knew it. Celestial metaphors are so prosaic. But how are you supposed to convey that emotion Jem? The reality versus the possibility? The yearning for what isn’t, for the dream of what could be? It’s the disparity between the blinding light of the brightest nebula and the empty, cold vacuum of space. That’s what it feels like. It’s the sun and the moon and the stars and all the spaces in between. What I feel- what I want _people_ to feel,” Will corrects himself, “when they read it, is that feeling when what you want is out of reach, and you know it’s out of reach, but your fingers still itch to stretch out, your limbs ache with the imagined strain. Do you reach, knowing that it’s impossible? Or do you sit there, unmoving, and watch as everything your heart has ever yearned for eludes you?”

Will drops his head back to the table so he doesn’t have to look at Jem’s face.

“Poetry is going to kill me Jem,” Will groans.

But of course, he doesn’t really mean poetry.

There’s silence, and Will tries to remember exactly what he’s said, whether he’s given away too much, and then Jem stretches out his long legs and nudges Will with his foot.

Will looks up.

Jem’s expression is hesitant.

“The way you spoke just now…”

Jem trails off, studying him. Will holds his breath.

“that was poetry. It was everything you said it was meant to be. Feeling, the human experience, all that,” Jem summarizes with a wave of his hand.

But Jem wants to say more, Will can see it on his face.

“What is it?” Will prompts, dreading, but still needing to know.

“Nothing. It’s just…it was more than the human experience you were describing. It was your own experience, wasn’t it?”

It is only because Will has grown up with two prying sisters that he is able to keep the embarrassment from his face.

“And if it is?” Will asks with feigned nonchalance.

Jem’s gaze is even. Will forces himself to maintain eye contact.

“Nothing,” Jem replies equally casually, “I just hope you know that you can always talk to me. If you need to.”

Will raises an eyebrow at Jem, “I’m reading you my poetry aren’t I?”

“Does that count as talking to me about it?”

“Some might say that it does.”

“Some might say that it doesn’t just as easily, that it’s the truth layered in evasive opaque language,” Jem points out.

“Ah, but still the truth,” Will emphasizes.

“And what truth is that William?”

For the barest moment Will considers the words on his tongue, the relief at finally saying what’s in his heart. But then he pictures Jem’s face, the gentle expression and kind but firm words that would shatter his heart irreparably, and he finds that he can’t do it.

“That I am a hopeless poet, doomed to love what I cannot create.”

Jem laughs, shaking his head, but he lets Will change the subject.

“You’ll get there. Just…stick with your honesty Will. When you let your heart speak—that's poetry.”

“So how would you write it then?”

“What?”

“The poem. About wanting what you can’t have. Daring to reach and fall, or observing from afar. How would you write it?”

Jem’s answer is simple, “In music of course.”

Will ruminates on this and then nods, glancing at his watch.

“Well would you look at the time, enough of this poetry nonsense,” he says, decidedly shutting his notebook, “on to more interesting matters.”

Jem looks at Will, amused.

“How are things with Tessa?”

Will immediately feels deceitful for asking. He should tell Jem that he’s been spending time with Tessa, that they’ve become friends. Hell, what if Tessa has already told him? He’d think- _know-_  that Will has been lying to him. His stomach sours with guilt. He can’t lie to Jem. He can rationalize evading talking about his feelings, but he can’t outright _lie_.

Now James really is blushing.

“Well actually…I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

Will stills, his mind replaying the past few days. Hadn’t Tessa been asking about Jem? Wasn’t she constantly checking her phone, messaging him? Now that he thinks about it, he can’t recall her specifically asking about Jem since that first day at lunch. Was it possible he had completely misread the situation?

Will looks at Jem expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate.

“She never replied to my text,” Jem explains, “and now I don’t know how to start the conversation back up again.” He bites his lip, “What if she’s politely trying to hint that she’s not interested?”

Which meant that Jem _was_ interested in Tessa. Will knew that Jem had dated other people, both men and women, but he’d never talked about them with Will. Certainly never asked Will how to win back their good favor.

_Forget about her_ , Will wants to say. _Take me instead._

But then he remembers how Jem looked leaning over her hand at The Mermaid, the way he pressed his lips to her knuckles and they’d both blushed. He thinks of Tessa, with her insatiable curiosity and bright laughter. They would be happy together.

“I can talk to her for you, if you like.”

Will barely registers as the words pass his lips.

Jem raises an eyebrow.

“I have Victorian Lit with her,” Will finally admits, “we’re friendly. I thought I might as well get to know her if you two were going to be a thing.”

“You had a class with her and you never said anything?” Jem sounds incredulous.

“I didn’t want to make it weird,” Will adds defensively.

Now Jem is bewildered. “Why would it be weird?”

“Because Jem! I- I was trying to suss her out,” Will admits, “I didn’t want you to get your heart broken.”

Jem frowns at him.

“Suss her out? Do you not trust my judgement? And even if you didn’t, don’t you think I should be able to make those choices for myself?”

Jem’s voice is calm and steady, but they have known each other long enough that Will can tell when his best friend is upset.

“Of course I trust you, your judgement has always been a thousand times better than my own,” that at least earns him a slight softening of the lines around Jem’s mouth. “Don’t be angry Jem. I’ve been meaning to tell you, I just didn’t know how to bring it up and the longer I waited the harder it became.”

“I don’t care that you didn’t tell me you had a class with Tessa, I care that you weren’t going to honor my right to make my own choices.”

“I was jealous Jem!”

There’s a stunned silence as both boys process what Will has just said.

“For so long,” Will swallows, “it has been just the two of us. The other night, at The Mermaid- I was curious about her- and I- I wanted to protect you. I- You- You’re-,”

Will has never felt the failure of language more completely than at this moment. Jem patiently waits for him to scrape the words together.

“James,” Will pleads, running a nervous hand through his hair, “you have to know how much you mean to me. I didn’t want you to get hurt. I would never take away your right to choose or dishonor any of your decisions. You mean more to me than my own soul, Jem. And Tess is an amazing person. And I know you said you didn’t care, but I _am_ sorry that I didn’t tell you earlier that I’d befriended her. She’s kind and clever and intelligent, and for what it’s worth I think you two would be happy together.”

The last of Jem’s displeasure fades away and Will feels wretched for it. Jem has a right to be angry with him. He hadn’t even thought about Jem in his jealousy over Tessa. How could he be so selfish?

Suddenly it all becomes too much for Will. He stumbles back from his seat and shoves his notebooks into his bag.

“I’m sorry Jem. I’m sorry.”

“Will, what are you doing? Will! Wait! I’m not angry.”

But Will is backing towards the door, blindly bumping into people as he keeps his eyes on Jem.

“I’m sorry James,” he repeats, “I’ll see you at home.”

Then he’s out the door and disappearing into the crowded street.

Jem stares at the now empty seat across from him.

“What the hell was all that about?”

Jem turns to find Sophie standing beside him, a tray stacked with dirty dishes balanced on her hip. She is staring towards the door Will just disappeared through, a frown tugging at the scar on her face.

Jem sighs and follows Sophie’s gaze to the door.

“I wish I knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the kind comments on this story! My uni is starting up again soon, so updates will probably become a bit irregular, but I'm going to try my best to keep working on this story. You're all amazing and it means so much to me that I'm able to share my writing with you. Thanks for reading :)


	5. The Edge of Uncertainty

Will got like this sometimes.

He would withdraw into himself, or throw himself into his writing, or come stumbling home in the middle of the night smelling like alcohol though his eyes were always lucid enough that Jem suspected he wasn’t really drunk.

Jem had tried to talk to Will about it, but whenever he brought it up Will only pushed him further away. He knew from experience that the best thing to do was to show Will that nothing had changed between them. That no matter how horrid or distant Will acted, Jem would still be there for him when he was ready to talk.

He just wished Will wouldn’t take such a damnably long time to come to his senses.

Jem sighs and unlocks the front door of their tiny third story flat.

“Will?” he calls.

No answer.

Jem lets out another heavy sigh and throws his keys onto the kitchen counter. He pokes his head into Will’s room, just to be sure, but he’s not there. He can’t even tell if Will has been there at all what with the perpetual state of disarray Will keeps his room in. His bed is unmade, sheets and blankets wilting onto the floor, clothes scrambling out of a hamper, papers passed out over his desk. Stacks of books and forgotten cups of once hot beverages teeter on every marginally flat surface.

Jem walks back out into the living room and throws himself onto their secondhand couch. He tries to distract himself with his composition assignment and when that doesn’t work he puts a Tchaikovsky vinyl on his record player. Like his violin, it once belonged to his father and he finds its raspy voice comforting as _Eugene Onegin Op.24_ wavers through the apartment. He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander with the music.

_“It started with shadows,_  
_Mine and yours,_  
_Blurring together_  
_On twilight walls_  
_Until it was not yours,_  
_Or mine,_  
_But ours.”_

He had been so sure Will had been talking about them. About him. Didn’t it make sense?

_“You were_  
_Across the room_  
_Weaving moonlit_  
_Melodies,_  
_But in the eyes_  
_Of the sun_  
_There was no space_  
_To echo between us_  
_And I wished,_  
_Above all,_  
_It were true.”_

Will had basically admitted that the poem was based on his own experiences. How many other musicians could Will know? How many of them did he watch as they played? But then he had been so evasive, and he’d basically offered to set him up with Tessa again. Surely he wouldn’t push Jem away so firmly if he felt anything for him in return? There were so many opportunities for Will to reveal his feelings. Jem grimaces at the hypocrisy, there had been plenty of moments where he could have admitted his own feelings as well. Tessa’s gray eyes and careful smile flash across his thoughts. He immediately feels guilty. What is he doing?  Is he leading Tessa on? Can it even be called ‘leading on’ when he hasn’t heard from her in a week? Jem lets out a frustrated breath. These thoughts are pointless. Will. Tessa. Neither of them seems willing to talk to him. He tries to focus back on the rise and fall of the music and for a whole two minutes he succeeds.

_“So how would you write it then?”_

_“What?”_

_“The poem. About wanting what you can’t have. Daring to reach and fall or observing from afar. How would you write it?”_

The conversation with Will returns, unbidden, to his thoughts. His answer had been honest. He was no poet, but he was a musician. He lets himself toy with the idea. How would he write it? He stands and switches off the record player. A thought exercise- just what he needs to distract himself. He scoops up his violin from its rest and plucks out a few notes. Then he grabs his bow and pulls it across the strings. A flat. F sharp. He shuffles around in his book bag until he unearths blank music paper and a dull pencil.

Then he begins to play.

He works until the floor beneath his music stand is littered with rejected music notes and his pencil snaps in half. Then he gives up on writing any of it down and just plays. Plays until his skin is bruised and his fingers bleed. Until he has transposed all his feelings into song.

The sun has long set and night is fading when he finally sets his violin down.

Will still isn’t home.

Jem tucks his violin away and gets ready for bed, telling himself all the while that he hadn’t been waiting up for Will, that he had been absorbed in the music.

He almost believes it.

 

In the morning there’s still no sign of his errant flat mate. Jem checks Will’s room again, just to be sure. He can almost imagine that the papers on the desk had been momentarily revived and shuffled around, that more clothes had picked up arms and joined the jailbreak from the hamper. But if that were true, Will would still be there, tangled in the sheets. Jem has never known Will to get up before he has to.

Feeling resigned, Jem wanders out into the kitchen. He toys with the idea of making eggs, but ultimately settles on a halfhearted bowl of cereal. The last few bites have all gone soggy when a soft jingle dances across the floor accompanied by a plaintive yowl. Jem smiles down at the cat who stares reproachfully back up at him.

“Morning, Church.”

Jem crouches down to rub the cat under his chin which earns him a pleased purr and an affectionate head butt. At least someone was glad to see him. He starts shuffling around the kitchen, scooping food into a bowl for Church, tidying dishes, and fusing over cabinet doors. He has just opened and closed the empty dishwasher for the second time when he decides that this is particularly pathetic. It's not as if cleaning the kitchen would summon Will like a genie from a bottle.

Jem takes out his phone and pulls up his messages. He opens his chat with Will, toys with what to say, then closes it again. William would come back home when he was ready and not a moment sooner. Instead he opens a new message, types out a quick line and hits send. A few moments later his phone pings with a response. He smiles as he reads it. Jem throws on a scarf and shoves his feet into shoes.

“Be good Church, watch the house.”

Then he grabs his keys and heads downtown, heart already feeling lighter.

 

* * *

 

She is leaning against the railing when he gets there, staring out at the slate grey water of the Thames. Her dark hair curls wildly in the breeze and she hugs her elbows against the chill. Jem leans his back against the railing beside her.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

Sophie turns to look at him, offering a smile in return.

“Of course Jem, we haven’t had any quality time since you got back from Shanghai.”

Jem feels momentarily guilty. It was true. Since he’d come back from visiting his relatives in Shanghai this summer, his time had been consumed by Will and the Institute. With the exception of frequenting Sophie’s bakery, he’d hardly seen her at all.

“Sorry about that, I did mean to see you. Everything just got so hectic once I got back.”

“You mean Will got hectic once you got back,” Sophie says with a knowing look.

Jem is sure his cheeks are a rather mortifying shade of scarlet.

“Hey, it’s fine," Sophie says, nudging him with her shoulder, "I know what he means to you.”

Jem shakes his head, “It’s not fine, I should have made time,” he adds emphatically, “I’m sorry.”

Now Sophie is blushing, “Jem, don’t apologize, I was only teasing.”

“Even so,” Jem says, but he lets it drop.

She tucks an errant curl behind her ear, “Anyway, what’s up? You sounded like you needed to talk.”

“Ughhh, Sophie,” Jem moans, covering his face and turning so they’re both facing the water, “it’s Will. Everything’s so confusing, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Sophie hums thoughtfully, “How about at the start?”

Jem laughs drily, “But where is that? This year? Last? The Institute? Or even before that, at boarding school?”

Sophie studies him, her gaze sharp and searching.

“Well how about this then, when did it get confusing?”

Jem stares out at the water.

“When I met someone else.”

Sophie looks at him in surprise.

“Someone else? James, you’ve been holding out on me!”

Jem ducks his head, scratching at the railing beneath his hands.

“Her name’s Tessa.”

His lips curl into a smile at the shape of her name.

“Tessa? You mean...”

“She’s a girl?” Jem guesses.

He turns to look at Sophie, who’s blushing furiously.

“Well, I guess…I just thought with Will…You never mentioned anyone else so…I’m sorry. I sound like an idiot. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Jem shrugs in response.

“I don’t talk about it much. I guess…I’ve always felt like it shouldn’t matter what kind of person you love. It should be about _who_ you love. The individual. It’s…what makes them _them_. What draws you to them that’s important. Since I’ve known you--even before then—it’s been Will. You couldn’t have known.”

“Still,” Sophie insists, shaking her head.

Jem can tell she still feels embarrassed, so he smiles and leans in, pressing their shoulders against each other. Sophie can be particular about touching, but this time she sighs and rests her head against his shoulder. They sit in silence for a minute, just leaning against each other, watching the boats pass by on the choppy water.

“So tell me more about this Tessa,” Sophie says.

Jem cuts his eyes to her, “What do you want to know?”

Sophie sighs with mock exasperation, “Everything, James! I want to know everything. Spill the beans,” she adds, poking him in the arm.

Jem chuckles, “Well, she’s a transfer to the Institute. She’s from America and here to study publishing. I met her at The Mermaid—”

Sophie makes a derisive snort.

“—We got to talking before Will got us forcefully removed from the premises and I gave her my number. We talked a little but…it’s kind of petered out. She was probably just being nice,” Jem admits.

“Let’s see then,” Sophie says holding out her hand.

“What?”

“The messages Carstairs. If you’re going to be a pining mess, I’m going to need more than ‘it’s kind of petered out.’ _How_ did it peter out? You’re too much of a gentleman to have said something stupid, so let’s have a look.”

Jem raises an eyebrow incredulously, but pulls out his phone all the same, swiping open his messages and handing it over to her. He watches as she scrolls through the messages, amusement flickering over her face followed by a slight furrowing of her brow.

“James…”

He feels his stomach tighten.

“What?”

“Your message never sent.”

“What?”

Sophie turns the screen so it’s facing him and points at the exclamation point hovering beside his message.

“It didn’t send. Tessa never got it.”

“Oh,” Jem says, then, “ _Oh._ ”

He takes the phone from Sophie and reads back over the messages.

 

_1:30  Well I’m glad you were there to save him.  
1:31  You’re a regular knight in shining armor James Carstairs_

**_1:45  I hardly deserve that distinction :)  
1:45 But perhaps as a fair lady, you’ll do me the honor of grabbing coffee with me?_ _(Unsent!)_**

 

“Oh no. No no no. You’re not telling me the last thing she saw was my pathetic smiley face?”

Sophie gives him a sympathetic grimace, “Afraid so.”

Jem groans and swipes a hand across his face.

“Sophie, how do I fix this?”

She drums her fingers against the railing.

“Do you want to fix it? I just mean,” she adds hastily, “with Will and everything…” she trails off uncertainly.

Jem thinks of Will’s eyes staring at him earnestly across the table at Sophie’s. The way his words make Jem’s heart flutter. The blue of his eyes. The inky shadows of his hair. The comfortable way they have with each other, the shared laughs and easy silences.

He thinks of Tessa. Of the warmth of her laugh. Her serious eyes. The smooth press of her hand against his lips. 

It had felt right. Easy.

With Will everything was complicated, there was too much at risk. He bites his lip, hesitating on the edge of uncertainty.

Then he nods once.

“Yes. I want to fix this.”

Sophie smiles at him.

"Then let's go win this girl's heart."


	6. Butterflies

On Sunday morning, Tessa wakes to bright sunlight streaming through her windows. She groans, eyes still mostly closed, and stretches out her hand to grab her phone, certain it is far too early for the sun to be glaring so aggressively. She rolls onto her back and cracks an eye open to look at the time, only to find that her screen is littered with unread text messages. She squints harder until the blurry words come into focus. Three drunk texts from Jessamine, one from Nate, and eight from a number she doesn’t recognize.

Her eyes skim past Jessie and Nate’s, leaping towards the unknown number.

 

**_8:32     Tessa it’s Magnus_ **

 

Well that answers that question, she thinks, although she was curious how he managed to get her number.

 

**_8:32    I have a problem, or rather- we do._ **

**_8:45    It’s happened a few times before, but never like_ **  
**_8:45   Well_ **  
**_8:46   You’ll see_ **

**_8:46   1834 E Broad Street flat 2A.  
8:46   Please come at your earliest convenience._ **

**_9:00    It’s Will_ **

 

Tessa reads the messages again, sure she missed something in her semiconscious state. She blinks and reads for a third time. When she still can’t derive any sensible meaning from the texts, she types out a quick response.

               _10:26   Magnus, what’s going on?  
               10:26   Is Will ok?_

Three dots surface and then disappear.  
  
               **_10:28   Just come over, ok?_**

 Tessa shakes off the blankets, suddenly awake, and throws on clothes, hurriedly grabbing an apple from the kitchen as she ducks out the door. It takes her a while to find the address Magnus had sent. She hasn’t quite figured out her way around the city and relies heavily on her phone for directions. After three tube rides and two wrong turns, Tessa finds herself standing outside an older brownstone apartment block. She double checks the address from her phone to the building in front of her.

1834 E Broad Street.

The apartment block is nice for a grad student, nice for anyone really, and Tessa frowns up at it. It could have been any number of old brownstones back in New York, not unlike the exterior of the little apartment she’d shared with Aunt Harriett. Only that one had had a rusting fire escape, broken radiator, and triple locked door, whereas this building looked pristine. If it weren’t for the weathered stone, she’d almost think it was new construction. She takes a steadying breath. No, this apartment block was nothing like that one, so she walks up to the door, decisively ringing the buzzer for the appropriate flat. The entrance buzzes open and she finds herself in a common stairwell. She climbs up to the second floor and knocks at number 2A.

Tessa hears a clatter of dishes and a dry, “I’ll just get that then, shall I?” and then Magnus is opening the door, revealing swathes of toned golden skin barely encased by a blue silk bathrobe which hangs languidly off his bare shoulders accompanied by tight black athletic pants slung low on his hips. An assortment of rings form a glowing constellation on his fingers in the sunlight.

Tessa blinks. “I didn’t realize it was fashion week, or I’d have put on something a little more daring.”

“Fashion isn’t a choice darling, it’s a lifestyle,” Magnus says as he steps aside to let her in.

Tessa snorts, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach as she steps inside.

“What’s wrong with Will?”

Magnus just closes the door behind her and leads her further into the apartment. Tessa tries not to stare. If she’d thought there was any resemblance between the outside of Magnus’s apartment and the one she’d shared with Aunt Harriet, the inside of the building immediately removes any lingering comparison. Inside, the apartment is all exposed brick walls and light grey paint and hardwood floors. The walls are lined with shelves filled with odds and ends, plants and books and strange brass instruments Tessa couldn’t begin to name. Wooden masks hang on the walls, neighboring bright paintings and woven tapestries while warm oriental rugs hug the floor.

“How can you afford a place like this?” Tessa asks, too curious to consider whether the question is strictly polite. Aunt Harriet had always been chiding her for asking inappropriate questions.

“Inherited it,” Magnus says simply as he leads her down a hallway. He doesn’t offer any further explanation and Tessa is just about to ask another question when they come into the living room. On an overstuffed couch lies Will, shirtless, elbow tossed over his eyes, blankets strewn most of the way to the floor and Tessa forgets any lingering questions at the sight of him.

“William” Magnus drawls, “do try and look presentable, we have a guest. Miss Gray is here.”

An incoherent sound escapes Will’s lips.

Magnus strolls over to the windows and lifts the blinds; a spear of sunlight immediately slaps Will in the face. He curses in Welsh and struggles up, glowering at the room. When his eyes focus on Tessa he scowls and rubs at his eyes.

“Why is Tessa here?”

His voice sounds hoarse and rusted, void of its usual warmth. It strikes Tessa then, that she’s never seen Will when he is anything but cheerful or ridiculous. Never seen him upset or hurting or angry. The opportunity to learn this new side of Will sends a dark thrill through her.

Tessa lets her eyes roam over him, looking for an injury or anything that would warrant such strange messages from Magnus summoning her there. She has to admit he looks terrible: eyes bloodshot and framed by dark shadows, snarled hair, the beginnings of a 5 o’clock shadow dusting his jaw.

“Because, William,” Magnus says, pulling Tessa back into the conversation, “you’ve been lying on that couch for two days now and I was running out of ideas. I’d been hoping your youthful constitution would wear thin and you’d tire of the chiropractic tragedy that is couch surfing, but here we are.”

“You didn’t need to drag Tessa into this.”

Magnus leans his arms on the back of the couch, “Au contraire, darling. Since you stumbled into my apartment in the middle of the night with no explanation but the stench of alcohol wafting off you, I’d say I had every reason to drag Tessa into this. My wiles and charms were clearly lost on you, so I summoned Tessa in the hopes that you might prefer her beautiful face and listen to her good sense. Unless you start explaining things, this has become a full-scale eviction.”

Will throws himself back onto the couch and slings his elbow over his face.

“Will,” Tessa says, moving closer to him, “why on earth have you been on Magnus’s couch for two days?”

Will buries his face in a pillow. Tessa lets out a huff of incredulous laughter.

“You’ll have to do better than that William, I’m very persistent.”

Incoherent mumbling.

“What?”

“I SAID,” Will shouts, not bothering to lift his face away from the pillow, “I got in an argument with James.”

Magnus snorts, “you couldn’t get into an argument with that boy if you tried William, he’s too good natured.”

“Well then I must be incredibly foul natured, because it happened,” Will snaps.

Magnus raises his hands in a placating gesture, “Well if you did get in a fight with James, can’t you just apologize to him like a normal human being?”

“No Magnus,” Will’s voice drips acid, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Will groans and covers his face again with the pillow.

“Will…” Magnus glances briefly at Tessa, then back down to the boy on his couch, “I know that you…”

Will pulls the pillow down far enough to glare at him so venomously Tessa is surprised that Magnus doesn’t spontaneously combust.

“Well, was it about that?” Magnus asks with a raised eyebrow.

“NO.”

“About what?” Tessa asks, unable to help herself.

They both ignore her, instead having what appears to be a silent argument punctuated by mutual glares. Tessa fights back her rising fury. Why bother to bring her here at all if they weren’t even going to include her in the conversation? Tessa is just about to say as much when Will speaks, his voice low and dangerous.

“Magnus. Don’t.”

Magnus throws up his hands in exasperation and moves away from the couch.

“If you don’t talk about it eventually William, it will ruin you,” Magnus says darkly.

“Then it will ruin me.”

“And what about James? Will you let it destroy him as well?”

“I’m trying to protect him!”

“You’re protecting yourself,” Magnus snaps, “and doing a piss-poor job of it. If you truly cared about James, you would be honest with him and _talk_ about it.”

“Oh yes, because you’re always so honest and truthful aren’t you _Magnus_?”

The grad student spins back towards Will, his body rigid with a new restrained energy.

“That is not the same William, and you know it.”

“But if you were just _honest_ , if you _talked_ about it, wouldn’t it be _better_?” Will taunts.

“Am I to be thus abused in my own home William?”

“Well I doubt Tessa wants us duking it out at hers.”

“Your turn Tessa,” Magnus snaps, turning his back to Will once again, “I haven’t had enough caffeine to be dealing with this,” and he stalks into the kitchen to start making coffee.

“What the hell was that about?” Tess asks, eyes trailing Magnus’s rigid form as he whirls away.

Will rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand, hugging the pillow to his chest with the other. There is something so vulnerable in the gesture that Tessa feels herself softening towards him again.

“Nothing,” Will sighs, “I was being a dick, per usual.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“What?”

“Usually a dick. I don’t think you are.”

Will gives a humorless little chuckle, “well you don’t really know me, do you Tessa?”

The words hit harder than Tessa cares to admit. She knows she hasn’t known Will long, only a few weeks, but she’d thought they were friends. Thought she knew him. But she doesn’t know this cruel Will, who is mean and biting to the people who care about him. She doesn’t know if she wants to know him.

She remembers then, Jem’s affectionate smile as he looked at Will racing over table tops at The Mermaid. The way Jem’s mouth curved into a smile whenever he said his best friend’s name. To be fair, she didn’t really know James either, but Tessa knew people, had found all sorts in books and the streets of New York, and she knew James was a good one. If he trusted Will, loved Will, then Tessa decided she wouldn’t be the first to give up on him.

She brushes off his words with a practiced indifference.

“Don’t you dare start with me William Herondale,” Tessa says, trying to channel all the sternness Aunt Harriet had ever displayed in her life, which admittedly wasn’t much. “You can avoid James and snap at Magnus, but if you say I don’t know the real you, then you certainly don’t know the real me. But I’ll give you a hint, I don’t give up easily. Now, what did you and James fight over?”

Will stares stonily at the ceiling.

“If you think not answering will make me stop asking, you’re dead wrong.”

Still Will says nothing.

Tessa sighs and moves up to the couch, leaning on its back until she’s peering down into his face. A loose curl of her hair falls forward, brushing against the bare skin of his chest. He pretends that she’s part of the ceiling.

A worrying thought scampers across Tessa’s mind. She thinks of his face, bright and laughing over coffee at Sophie’s, and the way his voice sounds when he’s arguing poetry with her. She thinks of Jem’s lips pressed against her hand, the electric tingle that had shot down her spine. Magnus’s words race back across her mind. _“You’re protecting yourself and doing a piss-poor job of it. If you truly cared about James, you would be honest with him and_ talk _about it.”_   Their refusal to explain, to loop her in to the conversation…If Will and Jem’s fight had anything to do with her…if she had somehow come between them…

“Was it me?”

Will’s eyes snap to her.

“Not everything is about you Tessa.” Will’s voice is acidic.

“No,” she agrees, trying to project indifference, but she can feel her cheeks burning, “so what was it then?”

Nothing.

“Did you take something of his without asking?”

“No.”

“Forget to pay the rent on time?”

“No.”

“Leave dirty dishes in the sink and he got tired of always being the one to clean them up?”

Will’s sigh is very set upon, “No, Tess,” a pause and then, “although that last one is likely true.”

“Well what was it? It must have been very bad if you haven’t even gone home since then.”

Will cringes. Hesitates. Caves.

“I was being an arse, per usual. And Jem forgave me, as he always does.”

Tessa waits.

“Is that it?”

 “Is that it?” Will mimics back scornfully and Tessa winces, “Yes Theresa, that’s it.”

“Well if he forgave you, then what—”

“That’s just it, Tess,” now Will’s voice is strained, something desperate creeping in at the edges, “Jem forgave me. He always forgives me. But one day, what if he doesn’t? What if I mess up so badly that even James’s unending kindness runs out for me? How much can one person keep giving?” He shakes his head. “It’s unfathomable Tess. That he should still be my friend even now. You know, I used to be horrible to him. Well, I was horrible to everyone at boarding school, so that wasn’t really anything special, but he stuck with me Tess. He’s always stuck with me and I can’t begin to understand why. And I know I don’t deserve him, so every time I mess up, every time I prove it to myself…” his gesture encompasses himself, the couch, his dire hopelessness. 

He’d been running a hand through his disheveled curls while he’d been speaking, and now his hair sticks up on end and Tessa fights the urge to smooth it down, to make calming sounds like Aunt Harriett used to when she was sick or upset and rub soothing circles on his back. Somehow, she doesn’t think Will would appreciate the gesture.

“Will…” Tessa starts, but the words aren’t there yet, and the look in his eyes is so desperate, like he believes she has the road map to Jem’s affection and can keep him from falling off course. It’s heartbreaking and endearing, and this Will is so much _more_ than the cruel Will of moments ago or even the ridiculous Will of last week, that she walks around to the front of the couch and nudges Will’s legs until he throws them onto the floor, making room for her. She slides in beside him as the blanket falls the rest of the way off the couch and Will rubs the back of his neck as he sits up.

“Shit. Magnus was right,” Will groans, rubbing the arch where his shoulder meets his neck, “couch surfing is a chiropractic hazard.”

Tessa laughs and leans in towards him until their knees are touching.

“Will,” she starts again, “Jem loves you.”

Will’s eyes cut to her, once again sharp and unreadable, but she carries on.

“He does. I can see it when he talks about you, when he says your name. It’s the same look you get whenever you talk about him. I know I don’t know you—” Will opens his mouth to interrupt, but Tessa plows on, “No, you were right. We’ve only been friends for a short while, and I don’t really know you. But Jem must. He’s known you for years, has _chosen_ you for years. It’s a friendship that runs deep, Will, it’s not going to be torn apart by a few hasty words. You say he’s always forgiven you, that you don’t deserve him, but there must be a reason why he keeps choosing you William. Maybe you just need to learn to see that reason for yourself.”

Will stares at her openly, a thousand emotions chasing each other across his face. Tessa can’t read a single one of them, it’s like trying to derive meaning from the shifting clouds.

He leans towards her, just slightly, and she can feel the warmth emanating from his bare skin as she realizes, too late, that maybe this was crossing the line of friendship, dipping into something nebulous and uncertain.

Will opens his mouth to speak and Tessa feels her heart trip in her chest with the possibilities.

Just then Magnus strolls in, steaming mug in hand.

“Oh good, you got him sitting up. That in itself is a feat, you should be pleased Tessa.”

Will leans away from her, shifting to look at Magnus. Tessa feels as though a cavern has opened between them and disappointment floods in to fill the space. But…that wasn’t right, was it? What on earth could she have to be disappointed about? She shakes her head, pushing the thought away.

“Magnus,” Will starts, his tone already laced with repentance.

Magnus waves a hand at him.

“It’s in the past. You know my couch is always open to you, I just wish next time you would speak to me, let me know what’s going on.”

Will’s mouth hangs agape, speechless, so Tessa slaps him lightly on the shoulder.

“He was worried about you, the least you could do is say thank you,” she chides.

“Thank you, Magnus,” Will says sincerely, the words tumbling out all at once, “you have always been an unfailing friend and I was a massive prat. I shouldn’t have treated you that way and I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“All’s forgiven,” Magnus smiles, “Now git— my boyfriend is coming over in half an hour and we have plans for that couch. Unless you’d care to join in,” Magnus adds, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Will shoots him a friendly, “Fuck off,” then he walks over and clasps Magnus’s hand doing The Bro Hug that Tessa had watched Nate perform over and over with the neighborhood boys back in New York. Tessa shakes her head in amusement, some things were just universal.

Will pulls away first, digging through the spilled blankets to find his missing shirt. He pulls it on and then gives Tessa a sheepish grin, pulling his fingers through his hair.

“I’m sorry Magnus had to drag you all the way out here to get me off his couch, Tess. And for—for the things I said. They weren’t fair. I’m sorry.”

Tessa is about to respond when a massive gurgle interrupts and her hands fly to her stomach. She hadn’t realized how starved she was. What had she eaten today, an apple?

Magnus and Will stare at her.

“My God, Tess, when was the last time you ate? It sounds like your stomach is tearing itself apart,” Will teases.

Tessa can feel herself blushing, but she rallies.

“Funny story, I actually got eight urgent text messages claiming something was seriously wrong with you and to come to Magnus’s at once, so no, I didn’t really get the opportunity for breakfast.”

Now Will is laughing though his ears are tinged pink and he throws an arm around her shoulders.

“How terribly rude of me. Let me make it up to you. Lunch?”

Tessa nods agreeably as her stomach lets out another loud protest.

Magnus declines to join them, claiming his boyfriend as an excuse as he shoos them out the door, threatening Will with defenestration if he shows back up on the couch within a week. Will laughs and clasps Magnus’s hand one last time and then he and Tessa are out the door and on the street.

“Where to?” Will asks, hands tucked carefully into his pockets as he walks beside her.

“I don’t really know this part of town,” Tessa admits looking around.

Will gives her a mischievous grin, “Then I know just the place.”

He turns around and starts walking in the opposite direction. Tessa, caught off guard, lets out an indignant huff but then Will is turning, walking backwards, reaching for her hand, and her heart ratchets up its ticking in her chest.

She lets him take her by the hand and pull her along until she is trotting beside him. He slows so she can properly catch up, and then he retracts his hand and Tessa feels her stomach start to sink. But then he playfully throws an arm around her shoulders, pointing out various landmarks and recounting ridiculous stories as they walk towards some unknown destination, and when Tessa’s empty stomach fills with butterflies, she decides to enjoy the moment and not think too hard about what might be causing them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID IT. I UPDATED THIS FIC. WOOOOO!!!!!  
> Heads up, I'm probably not going to be able to work on this for the next couple of weeks because I have a lot of things coming up, so sorry in advance about that.  
> But I hope y'all enjoy this chapter!
> 
> As always, thoughtful comments are welcome :)


	7. Never Trust a Duck

Will wasn’t sure where you took someone who had given up their Sunday morning to reason your pathetic ass off of your friend’s couch, but the park seemed like a reasonable choice. He glances at Tessa as she considers a cafe he’d pointed out and claimed was where he’d first gotten booed off stage for reading terrible poetry. Not Hyde Park, which was too far away and bound to be filled with tourists, but a decent local park with a respectable pond and possibly a trolley selling some kind of refreshments.

Tessa’s stomach rumbles again, loudly, and he smirks. Clearly they needed to stop off for food first.

 

He swings them into a shop on the corner, ushering Tessa inside and leaning jovially against the counter.

“What’ll it be, love?” the woman behind it asks.

Will gives her his most angelic smile, “Two meat pies please.”

“Meat pies?” Tessa objects, “Meat does _not_ belong in pies.”

Will puts a hand to his chest in mock offense.

“Uncultured American,” Will sniffs, “what a heinous statement.”

He turns back to the woman behind the counter.

“We’re trying to broaden her horizons. We’ll take a stake and ale and a chicken and leek please.”

The woman behind the counter laughs and looks to Tessa, “You’ve caught yourself a troublemaker here, love.”

“Oh, we’re not—”

But the woman had already turned away to grab their pies.

Will smiles roguishly at her and waggles his eyebrows.

Tessa blushes and slaps at him with the back of her hand.

It is at that precise moment that William is struck by how beautiful she is. There’s nothing truly remarkable about her appearance, except perhaps her large grey eyes, and even her hair, where it falls in soft waves and gentle curls around her throat, is a rather standard shade of brown. But when she blushes and laughs like that…well. Maybe he could see what Jem found so attractive after all.

 

Will isn’t quite sure what his face looked like at that moment, but it mustn’t have been his usual debonair nonchalance because Tessa stops laughing and raises an eyebrow, looking at him questioningly. Will was just opening his mouth to say what he didn’t know, when the woman behind the counter bustles back out with their pies.

“That’ll be ten quid dear.”

Will fishes around in his wallet until he produces the sufficient change, effectively saving himself from saying anything he might regret later.

The lady hands over their pies and Will leads them back out onto the street.

 

“Which do you fancy?” he asks, holding up the two pies. “Steak and ale?”

Tessa scrunches up her nose and Will laughs.

“Don’t bash it till you’ve tried it,” he scolds, but hands her the other pie.

"Seems rather Sweeny Todd," she says skeptically, accepting it.

His pie is deliciously warm in his hands and he watches as Tessa puts her face close to her own steaming pie, savoring the warmth of it.

“Mmmm, it smells amazing,” Tessa says, surprised.

“That’s because meat pies _are_ amazing,” Will says, leading her up to a black iron gate and holding it open for her.

“My lady,” he jests, and Tessa looks at him sharply.

Will raises an eyebrow at her.

She looks at him a moment longer, but she must not find what she’s looking for because she gently shakes her head and affably curtsies to him before proceeding through the gate.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That look.”

“What look?”

“Don’t play dumb Tessa. That look you just gave me when I called you ‘my lady’.”

She sighs and nibbles at her pie. Will waits. She glances at him again and repeats her sigh, seeing that he won’t give it up.

“Nothing. It’s just…Jem said the same thing to me. Or something very similar. I thought you were mocking me.”

“Me? Mocking? I never,” Will says, mockingly.

“Don’t Will,” she says and something in her voice stops him.

Was she…upset?

 

He looks at her as they walk along the white gravel path leading into the park. She studiously pretends not to notice.

“Tessa…” Will eventually hazards, “is something…wrong? I’m sorry if I upset you.”

It seems all he is capable of doing today is apologizing to her.

“It’s nothing you did. Well,” she amends, “apart from crashing Magnus’s house in a drunken stupor for two days, consequently dragging me out of my own bed to come save some vestige of Magnus's sanity. But it’s not that.”

“What is it?”

Tessa opens her mouth to answer, or possibly scold him, but he interrupts; “No wait, you don’t have to tell me. If you don’t want to. I shouldn’t pry. Sorry.”

He cringes. God, he really was incapable of anything but apologizing.

“No, it’s…it’s alright. I brought it up, really. It’s just—” she regards her pie rather mournfully, “I haven’t heard from James. And I know it’s pathetic and I certainly don’t expect you to talk to him for me or anything,” she rushes on, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. It’s just when you said ‘my lady’ I thought maybe James had said something to you. Something…I don’t know…unflattering.” Her cheeks are burning, flushed all the way to the tips of her ears.

“Unflattering?” Will asks confused.

“You know, mocking, derogatory, insulting, derisive—”

He opens and closes his mouth several times, unable to get the words out.

“ _James?”_ Will finally manages, aghast. “James would never—how could you think that— _James?_ ” 

Tessa raises an eyebrow at him.

“Well, as you so blithely mentioned earlier William, I don’t really _know_ you, and if I don’t know _you_ then I certainly don’t know James. It was one night at a bar Will. He’s not obligated to anything. I thought he was interested, but then he never followed up. It makes sense that he would talk to you, his best friend, and is it so out of the realm of possibility that a guy might make fun of a girl with another guy?”

“James isn’t like that,” Will says ardently. “I could see how you’d think it of me, but not Jem. Never _Jem_. He is only goodness. He won’t even speak poorly of sniveling swine like the Lightworm brothers, and devil knows they deserve it.”

“And what about you?”

“Me? I speak poorly about the Lightworm idiots all the time. It’s the only way I can tolerate speaking their names.”

“This isn’t a joke William,” she snaps, exasperated.

Will feels his head spin. Why did it feel like they were arguing?  

“Of course not, Tess,” he answers sincerely. “Besides,” he adds, “I have a strict policy of only making fun of people to their faces.”  


When she doesn’t laugh, or even let out a breathy huff of amusement, he looks at her, really looks. Her cheeks are still flushed and her ears burning red. Her eyes stare into the distance, unblinking, and she has her bottom lip caught between her teeth and is biting it, hard. He has a sudden memory of Cecy making that same face when he’d told her he was staying at boarding school instead of coming home and he recognizes the look for what it is. Hurt. Shame. Fury. He feels his indignation on Jem’s behalf fade away.

“Tess,” Will says gently, “what’s this really about, hey?”

“Nothing,” and the nonchalance of her tone is so forced that it’s painful. She must realize this because after a moment she lets out all of her breath at once in a gentle whoosh of air. “It just wouldn’t be the first time.”

_Not the first time that a man had mocked her._

Will feels such a strong surge of anger and protectiveness at the realization that it surprises even him. Who _dared_ mock such an intelligent, caring creature as Theresa Gray? A thousand responses leap to his tongue all at once and he doesn’t know which is the right one to say. He struggles past outrage, assholery, and disbelief, pushes aside pity, anger, and something he’s sure borders on patronizing, and eventually settles on sympathy.

“I’m sorry Tess. I’m sorry that there are monsters in this world and that one of them got their claws into you. But you have to know, James isn’t like that. If you could hear the way he says your name…he would never do anything to hurt you Tess.” He takes a breath, “And neither would I.”

Tessa finally looks at him.

Will, relieved, notes that her eyes are dry, which is a small mercy because he has always panicked when crying girls were involved.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then continues walking up the path.

“Thank you, William,” she murmurs and takes a large bite out of her pie.

Probably to avoid having to say anything else, Will acknowledges, but at least this feels like progress.

 

 

They walk on in silence, but it isn’t a terrible silence. Will, a connoisseur of silences himself, decides that it’s a thoughtful silence rather than an awkward or brooding one. He takes a bite of his own pie. There’s a thought that lingers at the back of Will’s mind and it takes him nearly until they reach the pond to realize what it is.

“Wait, what do you mean you haven’t heard from Jem?”

Tessa, pie now devoured, no longer has an excuse to remain silent.

“How many meanings are there to the phrase? I haven’t heard from him since before term started.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d know William.”

“No, I know, it’s just—he told me he hadn’t heard from you.”

“Hadn’t heard from me?” Tessa repeats, surprised.

Will nods.

Tessa fumbles for her phone and scrolls past messages from Magnus and Jessamine to open her chat with James. Her face, hopeful for a moment, falls almost imperceptibly.

“No. Look.”

She hands him the phone.

 

_1:20  I had no idea the British ducks were so bloodthirsty.  
1:20  Were there many victims?_

**_1:24  Only Will  
1:25  He mistook a swan for a particularly large duck and it took offence. _ **

_1:30  Well I’m glad you were there to save him.  
1:31  You’re a regular knight in shining armor James Carstairs._

**_1:45  I hardly deserve that distinction :)_ **

 

Will frowns at the phone.

 

“First of all, I resent that you two were making light of a serious threat to the British populace. Ducks are _not_ to be trusted.”

“Will, can you please—”

“Secondly,” Will plows on, “that swan was quite possibly the spawn of a demon because it was absolutely vicious and out for blood.”

“Yes, yes, waterfowl are evil, can you just—”

“THIRDLY,” Will continues, “James most certainly did _not_ rescue me from that fiend; I distinctly remember him standing there laughing until he was doubled over wheezing, so I’ll just disabuse you of that whole ‘knight in shining armor’ image right now.”

“WILL, PLEASE—”

 “FINALLY, I cannot believe James ended this conversation with a pathetic smiley face. It’s decidedly unlike him,” Will sniffs.

“But he did,” Tessa points out.

“Well. Maybe something happened to his phone.”

“For a whole week?”

Will had to admit it didn’t sound plausible. After all, James had texted him on Friday asking when he’d be home. His stomach sinks unpleasantly. Oh, right. He’d never responded to that particular text. He shook his head. He couldn’t very well apologize over text anyway. It was something that needed to be done in person.

“Well, whatever the reason, I’m sure it’s a good one,” Will said confidently. “James is the most reliable, consistent, considerate person I know. If he was interested- and he was,” Will assures her, despite the tightness in his own chest that the words create, “I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon. I’ll drop a hint when I get back if you want.”

“So you are going back then?”

“Of course. Besides,” he adds, trying for lightness, “Magnus made it pretty clear that I couldn’t afford the rent at his place.”

Tessa chuckles and angles a little closer to him. He hadn’t realized that she’d gotten so far away.

“Come on,” he says, infusing his voice with as much theatricality as possible, “we must patrol the pond for innocent victims of waterfowl attacks.”

Before she could protest, he grabs her hand and breaks out into a sprint, pulling her along towards the pond just ahead of them.

 

 

The ponds was only a few meters away now and still Will maintained his perilous pace.

“Are you ready?”

“For what?” Tessa gasps between breaths.

Will doesn’t answer, just flashes her a sharp smile.

Tessa looks ahead and gasps.

“Will—!”

But he doesn’t stop. He pulls them through the middle of a flock of ducks, whooping and yelling as they scatter in a frenzy around them. The noise of their wings is cacophonous, drowning out the curses of old women and the wild cries of children that had been throwing crumbs at the birds.

When the wings settle, Tessa is laughing.

It reminds Will of the sound of Jem playing the violin, bright and soaring.

He doesn’t want it to stop.

 

 

Regardless of Will's own desires, Tessa's laughter slowly trickles away, but the light remains in her eyes and he supposes for now that’s enough.

His heart is hammering in his chest. He tells himself it’s the adrenaline, or possibly the sprint from path to pond. He really needs to start going back to the gym.

An elderly woman starts throwing breadcrumbs at him and yelling in what he assumes is Italian. He laughs, making placating gestures, grabs Tessa’s hand and pulls them away. When the old woman sees their joined hands her eyes soften and she says something gentler but doesn’t stop throwing breadcrumbs at them.

“What was she saying?” Tessa asks.

“Haven’t the slightest, but she didn’t sound pleased did she? Probably something about scaring the ducks, I assume. Not that she’s really doing any better, feeding the ducks bread. Did you know bread is actually bad for ducks? Just fills up their stomachs but doesn’t actually provide any nourishment so they’re basically starving even though their bellies are full.”

Tessa’s face is horrified.

“That’s awful!”

“Well, I suppose it would remedy the whole waterfowl-terrorizing-the-innocent-populace problem I mentioned earlier.”

“William!” Tessa scolds, “Why do you hate the ducks so much?”

Will ignores her question.

“You know, when Jem and I first moved to London we came to this park for a nice lunchtime stroll. Grabbed a couple pies, poultry ones mind, and when we got to the pond there was this whole swarm of ducks terrorizing these children. The children were screaming—well, possibly laughing, but how could they know the danger they were in?—and so I said to James, ‘we have to do something.’ So you know what we did?”

Tessa shakes her head, amused.

“Well I took part of Jem’s pie—no point wasting my own if it didn’t work, right?—and I threw it at the vicious blighters.”

“The children?”

“No Tessa, the ducks!”

“Will, you didn’t!”

“What, you would have preferred it if I threw it at the children? What kind of monster are you?”

She smiles, “well, what happened next?”

 “They ate it of course! I’ve told you a thousand times Tessa, ducks are not to be trusted! They ate a _poultry_ pie. They’re _cannibals_ Theresa.”

Tessa held her sides with helpless laughter.

Will felt something warm spread through his chest at the sight. It was sticky and pleasant as honey.

“I can’t believe—” Tessa manages between wheezing breaths, “you two— fed the ducks poultry pies. Surely that’s— some kind of crime?”

“You’re absolutely right. Ducks _are_ a crime against nature. The ability to fly, swim, and walk? No creature should have that kind of power. Especially not ones willing to eat their own. It’s unnatural.”

“Stop—Will,” Tess gasps with laughter, “I can’t—breathe!”

Will laughs himself and throws an arm around her shoulders.

 

“Come on Tess, we better be getting home soon enough. I wouldn’t want to commandeer your whole Sunday.”

Tessa mirrors his gesture, lacing her own arm around his shoulder.

“Mmmmm,” she agrees, “Although…” she hesitates, flicking her eyes to him and away just as quickly. “It has been one of the best Sundays I’ve had since coming to London, commandeered or not.”

Will feels a warm flutter in his stomach. What was that about? Hopefully he hadn’t just given Tessa food poisoning from sketchy meat pies. If her best Sunday in London included food poisoning and kicking him off Magnus's couch, that was a sorry thing indeed.

“Of course it has!” Will agrees heroically, “After all, you got to spend an inordinate amount of time with me. Do you know how many people are dying for that chance?”

“I can think of at least one.”

"Only one?" Will says, offended.

“Jem,” she says meaningfully.

Ah. Right.

 

A new flutter announces itself in Will’s stomach. He thinks it might be shame, but it never does to look at one's emotions too closely.

“Right,” Will says, swallowing.

“Are you going to be okay? You don’t need…I don’t know, moral support?”

Will laughs, but kindly.

“It’s just Jem. It won’t be the first time I’ve come crawling back for forgiveness, don't worry, I’ve had loads of practice.”

Tessa still worries her lip between her teeth in concern.

“I’ll be fine Tess. But thank you. For the offer.”

She smiles at him again, and before he can think about the impulse too hard he pulls her into a tight hug.

“You know you’re worth a million of whatever asshole made you feel so small, right? Ten million. Ten trillion.”

Tessa laughs and buries her head further into his chest. It does something ridiculous to his heart.

She mumbles something into his shirt, but it’s so muffled he can’t make it out.

“What’s that?”

She pulls her head away just enough to let the words escape.

“Thank you, William.”

He makes to loosen his arms around her, but she holds on tighter, so he laughs and lets the hug draw out. When she finally pulls away her eyes are shiny, but there are no tears.

“Come on, Tess. Let’s go home.”

 

He drops her off at her apartment and watches as she ascends the stairs, turning to wave one last time before she ducks behind the door. He lets out a breath. It feels particularly weighted, but he couldn’t say with what. He waits one moment and then another. Finally, he decides it can’t be put off any longer. The streetlights have just begun to flicker on when he pushes off from the sidewalk and heads down the darkening street.

It was time to go see James.  

 

The walk home was of indefinite length. Will felt that he walked the same stretch of road over and over again, and yet still it seemed that he arrived home in no time at all. With every step up the stairs Will imagines a new scenario. Jem, silent and angry. Jem, disappointed. Jem, with no forgiveness left to give.

Will stands before their door and takes a deep breath and then another. He reaches for his key, but he can't quite will himself to place it in the lock. He rests his forehead against the door and tells himself to open it. To get it over with. His stomach roils nervously. Should he knock? Maybe he should knock. Maybe Jem wouldn't want him just...walking in, like he'd never left. Surely he couldn't think Will would just ignore his own idiocy, could he? 

_This is ridiculous,_ Will thinks, and places the key in the lock. Turns it. Pushes open the door. 

The apartment is dark. 

 

"Jem?" 

He flips on a light switch and throws his keys onto the counter. 

There's no response.

"Jem?" he calls again.

A jingling emanates from the shadows, coalescing into Church who stops when he sees the newcomer isn't Jem. 

"Church," Will says pleasantly. The cat stares at him reproachfully. Will puts more food into Church's bowl. The cat sniffs at this offering and, deeming it unworthy, yowls, offended, and prances back into the darkness. 

"Ungrateful git," Will mumbles and paces back towards Jem's room. 

He knocks on the closed door, "Jem?" 

No answer. 

Will opens the closed door and peers inside. 

Jem's room is dark, his bed empty.

In all of his imagined scenarios, Will hadn't considered the possibility that Jem wouldn't be home. 

 

 

Will's chest feels hollow. He closes Jem's door and paces back to his own room, settling at his desk. Well, he'd just have to wait up until Jem got home. 

He pulls out a pen and paper and begins to write. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me fooorrreeeevvvveeeerrrrrr, but I wanted to get it out to you all in time for the holidays :)  
> I hope you guys enjoy it!!!  
> As always, please feel free to leave constructive comments and let me know what you think!
> 
> Also this is your general PSA that bread is not good for ducks! Consider feeding them oats, corn, or peas instead :) I've also heard they like bananas, but who can say. 
> 
> HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MERRY NEW YEAR <3


	8. Serenade

James shuffles on the pavement and looks up at the building nervously. It had all sounded so romantic when Sophie helped him come up with the plan, but now he was afraid it was just…creepy. Was it creepy? Maybe it was creepy.

He sighs. Imagines returning home to the empty apartment and sitting in the dark with Church waiting for Will to finally return. Pathetic. Jem was tired of feeling pathetic. Tonight was a night for…whatever the opposite of pathetic was. Courage, perhaps. Tonight, he was going to take a stand, make a grand gesture. Something that would be in one of those sappy stories Will loves.

 _Stop thinking about Will_ , Jem chides himself.

He shakes his head and raises his violin, taking another moment to scan the windows of the building and guess which one belongs to Tessa. He hopes this is the right side of the building. He takes a steadying breath and lifts his bow, closes his eyes, and begins to play. A nocturne, one of Chopin’s, flows from his violin and dances on the night air. His heart is racing. What if she can’t hear him? What if she does hear him and thinks he’s horrible? Or creepy?

 _Music comes from your heart James_ , he hears his father remind him.

 _Listen to the music Ke Jian Ming, what is it saying?_ His mother’s voice asks.

 _I’m sorry._ He pours it into the music, drawing out each sweet, mournful, pleading note.

_I’m sorry and please give me a second chance._

He cracks open an eye and peers at the building. Nothing.

She won’t hear him play. This whole crazy plan will have been for nothing. He can feel the acceptance of his failure sink into his bones, but he doesn’t stop playing.

 _Music is a gift James, it must be shared_.

Maybe someone else needed to hear this music. Some sad elderly woman bereaving her dead husband while she sits alone at home. Or perhaps a stressed-out student who just really needed some classical music to motivate themselves to focus. Or maybe…maybe Jem just needed to play it, whether or not Tessa heard him.

Jem feels himself settle into the act of playing and gives himself over to the music. He lets the notes flow, feels his fingers dance along the strings. Time is irrelevant. There is only the song and the night. He plays and he plays until the last note hangs in the brisk night air and then even that falls silent. He sighs once and opens his eyes.

And she is there.

For a disorienting moment he thinks he has imagined her, that somehow the music has coalesced into her being, giving his longing a form, or perhaps that the force of his desire summoned her there against her will.

“James?”

He blinks.

She is four stories up, leaning out an open window.

“Tessa,” he says dazedly.

“Jem, that was absolutely beautiful! But what are you doing playing on the street? Will always goes on about how well you play, but I never imagined…oh, hold on, I’m coming down.”

She shuts the window and is gone.

Jem stands, disbelieving in the cold night air. She heard him. She heard him play and now she is coming down to see him. He glances again at her window. She had just been leaning out it, hadn’t she? He hadn’t imagined her? He looks at the door to the building. No movement.

He is just beginning to seriously doubt his sanity when it swings open and she reappears. Tessa. She smiles brilliantly and races down the steps towards him.

“Jem! That was absolutely amazing! What piece was it? Why are you playing out here? Aren’t you cold?”

Jem smiles at the barrage of questions.

“I was actually playing for a girl. I was trying to serenade her.”

Tessa looks absolutely horrified.

“Oh my—Oh, I’m so sorry, how stupid of me! I’m so sorry, I’ll just—”

He grabs her hand before she can back away any further. He feels the stupid grin that spills across his face. What a mess. Sometimes he’s envious of Will’s ability to so easily convey his meaning in words.

“No, Tessa—I was playing for you. You’re the girl I was trying to serenade.”

“Oh,” Tessa’s beautiful gray eyes widen further, “me?”

“Yes,” Jem smiles.

She studies his face, then smiles back at him.

“I’ve never been serenaded before. I’m afraid I rather messed it up.”

Jem laughs, “I can play it again for you, if you’d like,” he adds shyly.

Tessa’s smile is radiant, “I would love that.”

So he releases her hand, which he realized he was still holding, and he looks at her face as he lifts his bow.

_What is the music saying Ke Jian Ming?_

But Jem had never been good with words, not like Will was, so instead he plays memories, feelings.

_Will running haphazardly over tables with Six-fingered Nigel in hot pursuit. A beautiful, lonely girl with gray eyes. Beginnings, and laughter, and the tantalizing hint of a future with more memories to come._

He pours it all into his music, into each soaring note, and when the last note fades into the night he opens his eyes again and looks hesitantly towards Tessa.

Her eyes are bright, her hands clasped to her chest.

“Jem…”

His heart falters in his chest. Oh no. She didn’t like it, this had been a terrible mistake, this –

She reaches out a hand towards him. He takes it dazedly.

“That was…it was beautiful.”

“You…liked it?”

“Liked it?” she cried, “James, it was the single most beautiful and romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.” She was blushing now, but she plowed on.

“It wasn’t the same song, was it? As the one you played earlier? It sounded so different. It felt so…honest. And hopeful.” Her cheeks turned bright crimson. “But that sounds silly doesn’t it?”

“No,” Jem assures her quickly, “it doesn’t sound silly at all. It’s precisely how I felt when I played. I hoped,” now it is Jem’s turn to blush, “I had hoped that maybe, if you heard me play tonight, you would be willing to give me a second chance, to allow me to make up for the past week.”

He quickly explains the unsent message, glosses over his own sorry pining, and jumps to his tentative hopes for the future.

“So, would you, Theresa Gray, allow me to buy you a cup of coffee?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” she shrugs nonchalantly, but she can’t contain her grin and she takes a step closer to Jem. He feels his heartbeat ratchet up its ticking in his chest. She was so close. Her hand is warm where it rests in his own, despite the chill of the night air. He finds himself taking a tentative step closer. She tilts her head up, just slightly, to look at him and slides her hand from his up to his shoulders.

He shifts his bow so that he is holding both it and the violin in one hand and then allows his hands to settle on her waist. She was beautiful, her large gray eyes locked on his own, her lips just slightly parted like she was thinking of saying something but couldn’t decide what.

“May I—” he swallows, finding his voice unusually hoarse, “may I kiss you?”

She smiles sweetly and nods, then she is leaning up on her toes and whispering, “yes,” just before her lips brush against his.

What a delightful word.

He could die of happiness.

He leans down further to kiss her properly and then her hands are slipping into his hair and he is pulling her closer and she is gasping into his mouth and he is reminding himself to be gentle, no matter how much he suddenly wants to devour her, no matter that she is slipping her tongue gently, tentatively along his bottom lip, no matter the throaty sound that slips past his teeth and catches on Tessa’s smile.

“Get a room,” someone says in disgust as they walk by on the sidewalk and the moment is broken.

Tessa pulls away blushing and Jem suddenly wants to threaten violence to the random passersby. He keeps his hands on her waist and gently tugs her closer again.

She bites her lip and looks up at him but allows him to draw her near.

“Coffee? On Friday?”

She smiles and nods, “Coffee. Friday. I’ll text you.”

Hesitantly, he leans down and once more brushes his lips gently against hers.

“Until then Tessa Gray,” he whispers and then he steps back and releases his hold on her waist. She floats up the steps, turning once to meet his eye, smile again, and blush profusely. Then she is waving and disappearing inside.

* * *

 

Well. He’d call that a success.

He waits until he sees the light in her room flicker on and then he feels creepy for watching her window, so he packs up his violin and begins the walk home.

He can’t believe his luck. That she heard him. That she let him kiss her. That they were getting coffee on Friday. That _she_ kissed _him_.

He finds himself whistling as he walks up his apartment steps.

Today was definitely a success.

He fit his key into the lock and turns, pushing the door open. Pauses.

The lights are on.

The lights are on and the lyrical sound of Welsh drifts from the kitchen as Will lets out a steady stream of cursing. Jem hesitates, his good mood faltering. He doesn’t know how to feel. Relieved that Will is not dead in a ditch somewhere. Angry that he just appeared. Somehow still euphoric from kissing Tessa. He takes a steadying breath and rounds the corner into the kitchen.

Chaos.

Pots are boiling over on the stove, flames are leaping from beneath a frying pan, and cabinet doors are hanging open like gaping spectators. Amid it all is Will, looking for all the world like some demonic conductor from hell, brandishing a spatula and dashing madly between the boiling pots and stirring the flaming pan and opening the oven to check on something inside.

“Will?” Jem asks, and Will turns so sharply that he immediately bashes his head on one of the open cabinet doors and doubles over cursing darkly.

Jem cringes and puts his violin at a safe distance on the dining table before he rounds the kitchen counter to Will.

He places his hand on Will’s shoulder and not-so-gently pulls him up, examining the red mark that will surely bloom into a spectacular bruise in the morning.

“I think you’ll live,” Jem says and steps away.

An emotion flashes across Will’s face before he’s tucked it away. Remorse maybe? Hurt? Jem doesn’t examine it too closely. Instead, he turns to the chaos behind Will. So much for his clean kitchen.

“What’s this?” he asks, crossing his arms and nodding towards the mess.

Will straightens up.

“An apology dinner. For you.” He hesitates, searching Jem’s face for something. “It’s a tradition in the Herondale household. Whenever my mother and father have had a row, my father makes her dinner as an apology. It’s pasta. It’s the only thing I know how to make.” He fidgets, clearly waiting for Jem’s response.

A sizzling sound grabs Will's attention before Jem can answer and he is off dashing madly around the kitchen again.

Jem watches for a minute. He and Will had had plenty of arguments, but Will had never bothered with an apology dinner before. He shakes his head and turns, picking up his violin and heads to his room under the pretense of freshening up.

He shuts the door, places his violin on his desk and then throws himself onto the bed. He can still hear Will cursing from the kitchen. He closes his eyes and sees Tessa, her smile and the whispered word _yes,_ feels the phantom pressure of her lips meeting his. He can’t stop himself from smiling. He wants to lie in his room and relive every memory, wants to text Sophie and tell her thank you and give her every glorious detail. He does not want to deal with Will.

His stomach rumbles.

He sighs, kicks his shoes off and sits up. An apology dinner.

He hates fighting with Will. He wants to be able to tell Will about Tessa. He wants to know where Will has been for three days. He wants to know why Will won’t talk to him, confide in him. Why didn’t Will trust him?

A new memory replaces that of Tessa. Will beating up Archie Dearborn at boarding school for calling Jem a foul name, before they’d even properly been friends. Will taking a broken rib that rightfully belonged to Jem. Will agreeing to study with Jem when no one else would. Will crying in the middle of the night when he thought Jem was already asleep. The nightmares that sometimes woke Will screaming. Will holding Jem while he struggled to breathe.

Jem shook his head. Will is his best friend. He would go to Will’s dinner, even if he didn’t want to, because he loves Will and Will was sorry. Besides, he would forgive Will anything.

He opens his door and is immediately hit by the smell of something delicious.

The kitchen table is laid out properly with place mats Jem wasn’t even aware they owned. A steaming bowl of pasta filled with veggies and a creamy sauce sits in the middle accompanied by garlic bread, the source of the amazing smell. Will had even poured wine.

Will fidgets nervously by one of the chairs.

“Smells amazing,” Jem offers, and even adds a gentle smile. The relief that pours off Will is palpable. He gestures for Jem to sit and then begins serving. Jem bites down on a smile. He’d never seen Will try so hard to earn forgiveness.

“It’s pasta primavera. My father taught me to make it. It’s his go-to apology dinner. Just fancy enough to please while still being easy to make. Or you know, relatively.”

It occurs to Jem that Will is nervous. He’s never heard him talk so much about his family. Will finishes dishing out the pasta and then takes his own seat. He picks up his fork and hesitates.

“I’m sorry Jem,” he blurts.

Jem looks up at him across the table.

“I’m sorry I ran away and just…disappeared. And for before that, for not considering that it was your decision whether you wanted to get to know Tessa or not. And for always being a selfish bastard. I—I don’t know what I’d do without you and I don’t think I do a good job of showing you that I—” he swallows and Jem waits, “that I care.”

“Will, I just don’t understand. Why did you run away? Where did you go? Help me to understand you.”

“I—I don’t know. Because sometimes…it’s too much. And I can’t bear the thought of disappointing you, but it’s like there’s something hardwired in my brain to immediately self-destruct whenever I get close to—it’s unfathomable James. Your capacity for forgiveness. And I’m worried one day even you won’t be able to forgive me and I’ll deserve it. Do you understand?”

“Not really,” James sighs. He suddenly felt very tired. “But where did you go?”

“To Magnus’s. He let me crash on his couch.”

“And so you ran away to Magnus’s house…because I forgave you? So the solution is, what, not to forgive you?”

Will flinches.

“I just don’t understand Will. You say you are afraid that my forgiveness will run out, but I would forgive you anything. What do you possibly think you could do that I would not forgive you for?”

Will opens his mouth as though to answer then closes it again.

Jem watches him struggle.

When Will is finally able to speak his voice is very small.

“Anything?”

“Of course.”

“Murder?”

“I’m sure you’d have a good reason.”

“Arson?”

“Sometimes you need to burn a few bridges.”

“Getting rid of Church?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“So you wouldn’t forgive me for that?”

“No, you wouldn’t do it because I’d ask you not to.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at Will’s mouth.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t do any of those things if you asked me not to.”

“See? So how about next time, instead of running away, you just promise to talk to me about whatever the real problem is?” Jem swallows past his suddenly tight throat, “This is me asking you…please don’t run away.”

Will is all serious again.

“I promise.”

Jem nods and then takes a heavy drink of his wine and turns back to the food. They eat in silence for a while until Will clears his throat and says, “I wrote something for you.”

Jem raises an eyebrow.

Will clears his throat:

_“There once was a fool named Will_  
_who was given to acts of overkill._  
_He was the greatest idiot to ever live_  
_and now an apology he’d like to give._

_You see, he ran away from his best friend_  
_for feelings that he couldn’t comprehend_  
_and when his friend asked “why?”_  
_all he could do was reply_  
_“Because I’m the greatest idiot that ever lived.”_

 

Jem chuckles. “I hope you didn’t spend all day writing that.”

Will put his hand to his chest in mock affront, “All day? Jem, it took me weeks!”

Jem snorts and chokes on his wine which makes Will laugh in turn.

Once Jem could breathe again Will sobered, “I am sorry though Jem.”

Jem smiles back, “I know.”

 

Jem offers to help do the dishes but Will insists that dishes are the most important part of the apology meal and shoos Jem until he retreats to the other side of the kitchen counter.

“So what’d you do while I was away?” Will asks, up to his elbows in soapy water.

“Oh, well, you know. Played the violin, cleaned the kitchen, serenaded Tessa. Just the usual.”

Will freezes.

“Come again with that last one.”

“Hmmm?” Jem feigns innocence, “Oh, cleaned the kitchen? It really wasn’t that interesting.”

“No,” Will says staring at Jem, “after that. The serenading part.”

“Ah, that. Well, turns out, my last message to Tessa never sent and that’s why I hadn’t heard from her, so I sat outside her building and played the violin until she opened her window to tell me to shut up and then I convinced her to get coffee with me on Friday.”

Will scoffs, “she did not tell you to shut up.”

“You’re right,” Jem grins, “she kissed me.”

Will’s mouth falls open.

“WHAT?!”

Jem can’t help the grin that spills across his face. God, his cheeks hurt from all the smiling he was doing tonight.

“She heard me play and she came downstairs to speak with me and, well, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Except that you clearly just did,” Will says, hitting Jem with a dishtowel.

“She’s lovely William,” Jem says, and he can hear that his voice is dreamy but he doesn’t care. It was only Will after all, and he’d done so much pining after Will that it was nice to be able to talk to him openly again. He’d missed this honesty between them.

Jem glances at Will and frowns. There was something odd about Will’s expression.

“Is everything okay William?”

“Of course,” Will says quickly and the odd look vanishes, “I was just in shock over such roguish behavior from a self-professed gentleman. My sensibilities couldn’t handle it.”

Jem leans over the counter and shoves Will, who retaliates by throwing soap bubbles at Jem. Quicker than Will can follow, Jem scoops up a handful of soap bubbles and slaps them into a mockery of a beard on Will’s face. The scrape of the rough three-day stubble on Will’s jaw against Jem’s palms sends a shiver down his spine. He glances at Will to see if the other boy noticed, but instead he catches a dangerous gleam in his best friend’s eye.

“Will…”

Before he could say anymore, Will is lunging over the counter and dragging Jem back into the kitchen. Will is laughing and Jem is shouting as Will wrestles a matching soap bubble beard onto Jem’s face. Then both boys are laughing and shoving until Will is slipping in a puddle on the floor and reaching out to Jem who catches him. Jem pulls Will back to steady him and then suddenly Will is very close. Jem always forgets that Will is just marginally taller than himself. This close, it is impossible to forget. Will is still laughing and he leans in towards Jem who has the disorienting thought that Will is going to kiss him. He thinks of Tessa’s gray eyes, her slightly open lips, and he doesn’t breathe as Will gets closer. But then Will is leaning his forehead against Jem’s shoulder while he laughs and Jem can breathe again and he laughs at the ridiculousness of it, of the thought that Will would kiss him. That Will would want to kiss him. And then Will is rubbing his bubble beard on Jem’s shirt and Jem protests and shoves him off.

“Get off, you fiend!” Jem says, laughing.

Will obliges, then reaches out a hand to wipe a patch of bubbles off Jem’s face.

Jem is still laughing, embarrassed by his private absurdity, and doesn’t quite notice the look that passes over his best friend’s face. Doesn’t realize that Will’s hand hovers just a second longer than what is strictly necessary against Jem’s cheek.

Will clears his throat and turns, observing the mess of the kitchen, “well, that was fun.”

“Come on Will, you have to let me help clean up now.”

“Nope.”

“Will—”

“Goodnight James.”

“What?”

“You heard me, goodnight. You are officially banished from the kitchen until morning.”

“William—”

“Lalalalalalalala” Will said, shoving his hands against his ears.

“William, you can’t just—”

“WHAT? SORRY I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”

“WILL,”

“GO TO BED JAMES.”

Jem throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Fine William! You win!”

“Good,” Will said smugly, lowering his hands.

Jem just shakes his head and makes his way towards his room. He turned, once he got there, and saw Will was still watching him. Will raises an eyebrow and points towards Jem’s closed door.

“Bed.”

Jem just smiles and raises a hand.

“Goodnight William.”

Then he slips into his room, removing his now soapy shirt and changes into pajamas. And if, when he falls asleep, he dreams of grey eyes and a soft kiss and the brush of a hand against three-day stubble, well. He could always tell himself in the morning that it was just a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, A) Sorry for the SUPER INCONSTANT updates. I generally pride myself on my consistency, but turns out the only thing constant about my updates are that they are super sporadic. B) I've been asked a few times if I will be finishing this fic and I want you all to know that I FULLY INTEND TO FINISH THIS. I have no idea how long the final result will be, I don't know when it will be finished, but it WILL be finished. If for some reason I ever decide not to finish this, I PROMISE I will tell y'all in the notes. Pinky promise.  
> C) Woooooo! I got another chapter out!!!!! And it even has terrible, original poetry in it. So that's fun. I hope you guys enjoy the update and feel free to leave constructive/encouraging comments and let me know what you think!


	9. It's a Date

On Monday, Will doesn’t show up to Starkweather’s class. Tessa saves him a seat, assuming he’ll rock in late with his customary swagger, but the minutes slip progressively closer to an hour and still no Will. She peeks at her phone, but there’s no message from him. She’d wanted to tell him about Jem, about the way he serenaded her and how he truly did play as wonderfully as Will always said. She’s startled by the disappointment that washes over her when she concludes Will won’t be showing up. Belatedly, she realizes that all the other students have taken out pieces of paper and furiously started writing notes. She chides herself for being so distracted; the Institute had always been her dream and now that she’s here, she’s letting herself be sidetracked? No, she absolutely wouldn’t allow it. Tessa pulls out her materials and throws herself into the discussion on the influence of the monarchy on the popularity of literature in England. When she first raises her hand, Magnus catches her eye and smiles encouragingly. She sees the exact moment he realizes Will isn’t with her. He raises an eyebrow, but she shakes her head minutely before Starkweather calls on her. It seems Will has vanished on both of them.

After class Tessa fiddles with her phone, debating with herself until she finally caves and sends a single text.

_11:31 Too educated for class today? Starkweather was wondering where you were_

The response doesn’t come in until that evening when she is sitting alone at their usual table in the library.

**_9:54  Galivanting_ **

She waits for him to elaborate, but it doesn’t come.

 

On Tuesday, Jem texts to make sure she is still okay with their date on Friday. She smiles at the word date; in fact, she smiles the rest of the day. She is so busy smiling that she doesn’t notice Will, who ducks into a classroom when he sees her approaching in the hallway.

 

On Wednesday, Tessa settles into her seat in Starkweather’s class and watches the door for Will. She catches herself fidgeting and makes herself count to thirty until she stops. Someone asks if they can take the seat next to her. She smiles and nods, moving her things and ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest. Why is she so disappointed? Fifteen minutes into Starkweather’s lecture, she notices a head of inky curls bent over a notebook on the opposite side of the classroom. How had he snuck in without her noticing? Had he been there the whole time? Why didn’t he sit with her? Did he not see her? Had she said something to upset him? She mentally ran over the last things they had talked about. She had snipped at him a little in the park, but they’d hugged it out, so surely that meant they were on good terms? Had her text been too condescending? They were fairly new friends, maybe it hadn’t come across as jokingly as she’d intended. She resolved to accost him after class and straighten out any misunderstandings between them, but when Starkweather dismissed them, Will was out the door like a shot. Tess threw her things in her bag and hurried after him, but by the time she’d excuse-me’d and pardon me’d her way out of the classroom he was gone.

On Thursday, Jem sends another message:

**_10:21 If I’d realized a week could be this long, I’d have asked for our date to be sooner_ **

Tessa laughs. She can’t remember smiling this much in New York. Maybe once, before Nate had left and Aunt Harriet got sick, but that had been a long time ago. She likes this version of herself, the one who laughs and smiles and chases her dreams. She smiles up at the Institute’s old stone ceiling with its curved arches and suppresses the urge to twirl around with delight. She feels like she’s soaring. It is at that precise moment that she catches sight of a familiar figure turning down a corridor.

“Will!” she calls, racing after him. He mustn’t have heard her because if anything it seems like he’s picking up his pace. Tessa makes a small noise of frustration and picks up her own speed, determined to catch him. He is just about to walk into a classroom when she finally reaches him and grabs his arm.

“Will, wait.”

“Tess,” he says in a rather defeated voice, allowing her to turn him.

“Were you running away from me?”

“No,” he says gesturing to the classroom behind him, “I have class.” He brandishes a stack of papers she hadn’t noticed he’d been holding, “I’m here to get my poetry eviscerated.” Seeing her confused look, he elaborates, “workshop.”

“So, you’re not angry with me?”

“Why would I be angry with you?”

“That’s not really an answer to my question.”

He sighs; “I’m not angry with you Tessa.” His voice sounds so tired. Tessa frowns and studies his face. There are dark circles under his eyes and his skin seems pale and drawn.

“Are you feeling well?”

“Just dandy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be late to class,” he says, turning. Tessa catches his arm again.

“Will, are you sure we’re alright? You didn’t sit with me on Wednesday.” It sounds silly to her own ears as soon as she says it. How pathetic. He didn’t sit with her? What was this, elementary school?

“Is that what this is about?” Will asks incredulously, and Tessa wishes she could suck all her words back in and just let Will walk away. His voice reminds her of the Will sprawled on Magnus’s couch telling her she doesn’t really know him. It doesn’t have any of the warmth of the Will from the park or the ridiculousness of the Will who runs across tabletops and fights with swans. It is cold and sharp and caustic. She has the horrifying thought that maybe this is the real Will, that the other versions she had seen were the mask and this cold Will is the one who lies underneath. She takes a small, involuntary step back. She’d thought they were friends. How silly of her. They’d only met a little over a week ago. Since then, they’d studied together and that was it. Sure, Magnus had thought they were close enough that she’d have some influence over him, or at least enough to get him off Magnus’s couch, but clearly that wasn’t the case. Will was probably just embarrassed that Magnus had dragged a complete stranger into his personal affairs. She’d thought, walking in the park, that they’d had a connection. That the friendship she felt for Will had been reciprocated. But clearly not. He was Jem’s best friend. He was only being nice to her because Jem liked her. Why couldn’t she seem to remember that?

“Grow up, Tess.”

This time, when he turns to leave Tessa doesn’t try to stop him.

 

On Friday, Tessa wakes up early. She’d told Jem to meet her at Sophie’s at ten. That was four hours away and she didn’t have class, so there was nothing to distract her from the swarms of butterflies performing aerobatics in her stomach. She can’t remember the last time she was this nervous for a date. She walks to her dresser and starts rummaging around. Nothing is right. This sweater is too bright, this top too showy, this one too casual, this skirt too drab. Tessa lets out a frustrated sigh and shuts the drawer, but it slams harder than she intended.

“What on earth are you doing?” Jessamine scowls, rubbing her eyes blearily in Tessa’s doorway.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“Yes,” Jessie pouts. She narrows her eyes at the pile of discarded clothing Tessa had thrown onto her bed. “Hang on,” the sudden glee in Jessie’s eyes alarms Tessa, “I know what this is. You have a date!”

“What? How—”

“The frustrated sounds, slamming drawers, the mountain of unsuitable clothing, your frantic rummaging—you’re getting ready for a date! A date with a guy you _care_ about,” she elaborates with a waggle of her eyebrows. Tessa wants to die. “Who is he? Is it that strange boy you were sitting with at The Mermaid?” Tessa is honestly surprised Jessie had even noticed her sitting with Jem that night; usually she was so caught up with Nate that she didn’t bother to notice anything else.

“Well, actually—”

“Ha! I knew it!” Jessie says with a little clap, then she strides into Tessa’s room and starts sifting through the heap of clothes piled on her bed.

“Wait! Jessamine, what are you doing?”

“Helping you not look like an absolute troglodyte Tessa, obviously. Ugh,” she frowns holding up one of Tessa’s sweaters, “honestly, why do you even own this?” She pokes her finger through a hole near the collar.

“It’s comfortable,” Tessa snaps, snatching it back from her. It wasn’t really. It was itchy and a bit lumpy and honestly a rather dull shade of gray, but Aunt Harriet had crocheted it for her before she died and that was all that mattered. Jessie shrugged and returned to sifting through the pile while Tessa tucked the sweater away. She discarded a pleated skirt, a sweater depicting a book with the head and tail of a dinosaur above the word “thesaurus” ( _really_ , _Tessa?_ ), and a pair of leggings before releasing her own breath of frustration.

“Don’t you have any suitable clothes?”

Tessa reaches into the pile and pulls out a black shirt; she’d barely held it up for more than a second before Jessamine knocks it out of her hand.

“Don’t be ridiculous Tessa! It’s not even ten in the morning, you can’t wear a neckline that low! _Such_ a faux pas. You don’t want him to think you’re a whore do you?”

“Jessamine!” Tessa yelps, shocked, throwing the top at her.

“What? You don’t honestly wear this during the day in America, do you?” Jessie holds it up and gives it a little shimmy. Maybe it was the jiggle, or the way Jessie was holding it, but it looked scandalous. Tessa would never be able to wear that shirt again.

“Fine,” Tessa sighs, gesturing to the pile of clothes, “well clearly none of these are working.”

“You’re right,” Jessie agrees, standing. She moves to Tessa’s small closet and throws open the door, shuffling through the contents.

“This,” she says triumphantly, emerging with a pastel shirt spattered with flowers and a soft, rounded collar.

“You think?” Tessa asks, walking up beside her. She didn’t want to admit that it felt right.

“Absolutely. Not too fancy, not too casual. Like you’re trying, but not hard.” She holds it up to Tessa’s torso and looks her up and down. “Yes, this will do quite nicely. Put it on. And some jeans. Nice ones though, not those faded travesties you wear all the time.”

Tessa rolls her eyes and shoos Jessie out of the room before digging out her least faded pair of jeans and doing as Jessamine had said.

“Are you done yet?” Jessamine calls from the other side of the door, “You’re taking forever.”

Tessa inspects herself in the mirror and feels a bit vain for it. She’d put in the pearl earrings Aunt Harriet had left her. She remembered her aunt telling her they were for _special occasions._ Aunt Harriet had probably meant a wedding; she was always so confused that Tessa seemed more interested in a career than a husband.  

“I hope you’re dressed. I’m coming in.”

Tessa sighs. Jessie strides into the room and inspects Tessa, pursing her lips.

“What?”

“Wait here. Sit.” Jessamine instructs her, then whirls out of the room again.

Tessa, confused, sits.

Jessamine reappears with a makeup bag and a handful of brushes.

“What are you--?”

“I told you, Theresa,” Jessamine sighs, “I’m trying to help you not look like a complete troglodyte.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“What?”

“A troglodyte. You don’t really think I look like a cavewoman do you?”

Jessie waves her hand at Tessa and begins rummaging through her bag.

“Habit. It’s something my nanny used to say.”

“Your nanny?”

“It’s a person who’s paid to look after children.”

“I know what a nanny is,” Tessa says, annoyed, as Jessamine twirls a brush in a case of shimmering powder.

“Close your eyes.”

Tessa closes her eyes and feels the soft brush stoke against her eyelids.

“My parents were never around much, growing up,” Jessamine says after a moment. Tessa opens her eyes and Jessie frowns at her until she closes them again. “My mother’s a designer, my father a businessman. They didn’t have time to raise a child and run a bridal empire. So I had a nanny. Terrible woman. But she taught me French. Open.”

Tessa opens her eyes. Jessie peers at them closely, nods to herself and returns to the makeup bag.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Jessamine frowns.

“I’m always nice to you Tessa.”

Tessa’s face must look incredulous because Jessamine snorts.

“Fine, if you must know, it’s for Nate. If we’re to be married, that means you’ll be my sister-in-law and therefore you’ll need to be set up with someone suitable.”

“But you don’t even know Jem, how do you know he’s suitable?”

Jessie smirks, “Well now I know his name, so the background check shouldn’t be too hard. Besides, anyone is better than nothing. If he’s scandalous, that will just be a different kind of publicity for Lovelace Bridal.”

Tessa rolls her eyes and Jessie raps her smartly on the nose with a makeup brush.

“Hold still.”

“Wait,” Tessa realizes, finally absorbing all of Jessie’s words, “did Nate propose to you?”

“Not yet,” Jessie pouts, “but he will.” Her voice is confident, and Tessa doesn’t have the heart to tell her about the string of girls Nate left heartbroken back in New York. She wouldn’t listen to her anyway.

“There. Take a look,” Jessie commands, pointing Tessa to the mirror. Tessa wants to remind Jessie that this is her room, but she’s too curious to know what she looks like. She walks over to the mirror and does a double take. It’s not that she doesn’t look like herself. It’s that she does. She’d been expecting make up so heavy she didn’t recognize herself, or possibly to look like Jessamine. She’d anticipated having to wash it off in some public restroom before meeting with Jem, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was subtle and shimmery and exactly like she would have done it if she’d known how to use any of the powders and glitters in Jessie’s stash.

“Oh my—I look—”

“I know, but it will have to do. You don’t have the face for a more complex look.”

Tessa frowns at Jessie in the mirror, but the other girl is repacking her makeup and doesn’t notice. Tessa catches sight of her alarm clock beside Jessie and lets out a little gasp.

“Is that the time?! I have to go!”

She throws her wallet and phone in her purse and dashes for the door, then pauses, turning back.

“Thank you, Jessamine. You were a real help.”

Jessie waves her off, “Toodles. Don’t do anything mortifying on your date. Try not to be yourself, you’ll need a respectable man if you’re going to be part of the Lovelace empire!”

Tessa slams the door and heads to the bakery without bothering to give Jessie a response.

 

She arrives early. Thirty minutes early to be precise. She settles into a table along the wall and positions herself so she can watch the door without turning around every time the little bell rings, announcing the arrival of a customer. After a moment, the girl with the scar on her face, Sophie, approaches the table with a cloth in her hand.

“Sorry love, let me give this table a quick wipe down for you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Tessa smiles.

“Oh, you’re American!”

Tessa smiles awkwardly. She never knows how to respond to that particular observation. “Yes, I just transferred to the Institute.”

Sophie startles and looks at her closer. Tessa shifts uncomfortably.

“Sorry, it’s just—You wouldn’t happen to be Tessa would you?”

Now it is Tessa’s turn to startle.

“Oh! Um, yes? But, how do you know my name?”

“You’re here to meet Jem.”

Tessa suddenly remembers the first time she came here, when Will had told her that Jem and Sophie are friends.

“You must be Sophie!”

Sophie blushes.

“Will told me that you and Jem are close friends.”

“Will? William told you that?”

“Yes, the first time I came here. He said you tried to give Jem money when he was playing the violin and that Jem wouldn’t take it.”

Sophie smiles softly, clearly remembering the memory.

“Yes, that’s true. I was just surprised Will was the one who told you. He and I don’t get on.”

“Really? Why?”

Sophie looks flustered.

“Sorry,” Tessa blurts, “I didn’t mean to pry. My aunt always says I have more curiosity than any creature on God’s good earth rightly knows what to do with. Which really just means I don’t know when to mind my own business. Sorry,” Tessa finishes lamely.

Sophie laughs, “it’s alright pet. Here, let me wipe this table down.”

Tessa shuffles her chair back to give Sophie room. Sophie finishes wiping down the table and straightens up. The bell above the door dings and they both turn to see Jem looking around the room. His face lights up when he sees them. Sophie smiles and waves, then quickly turns back to Tessa.

“Don’t break his heart,” she says, her face all seriousness.

“What?”

“He’s the best sort of person, he doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken. He’s been through enough.”

“Sophie, I don’t—”

But then Sophie’s bustling back towards the kitchen and Jem is there and the rest of Tessa’s words fade on her tongue.

“Hello,” Jem says shyly, and produces a single rose which he presents to her. It’s a warm orangey color with bright pink tips. It looks like someone turned a sunset into a flower.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, taking it and holding it under her nose, “thank you.”

“Not as beautiful as you.”

Jem’s ears and cheeks are as bright as the rose. Tessa smiles at him, amused.

“I’m sorry. That was cheesy. Will’s the one who’s good with words—”

“I think you’re excellent with words James Carstairs.”

Jem visibly relaxes and grins goofily back at her.

“So, I just met Sophie. She seems to really care for you.”

Jem’s smile settles into something more manageable and he glances back at the counter where Sophie is busily taking orders.

“Sophie is one of my dearest friends,” he says seriously, “ I admire her very much. She’s been through a lot, and she still manages to see good in people.”

“How did you two meet?”

Jem smiles, “Well…”

* * *

 

The night Sophie met Jem, she’d been walking briskly along a cobbled side street on her way home from a night class at the business school. Her boots skimmed over frozen puddles of London’s refuse, her hands balled in her pockets, keys sheathed between knuckles, ready to lash out at even the slightest hint of unwanted attention from the other shadowed figures bundled against the cold. But it wasn’t a figure that caught her attention, it was the music. This wasn’t the worst part of town, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. Not the kind of spot one would go looking for street musicians and certainly not in this weather. Her steps slowed as the music got closer. It was beautiful, haunting and sweet, floating on the thick night mists that rolled in from the river, turning the whole world ethereal. She hesitated, knowing she should stay to the more populated side streets, that it was safer in the reach of the meager streetlights, but her feet carried her seemingly without her own volition.

She found herself across the street from a young man wringing his heart out on a violin. She thought it was the loveliest sound she had ever heard. His cheeks were red from the cold and she could only imagine that his fingers were numb. He played without gloves, only a blue scarf wrapped around his throat and a jacket for warmth.  She stood in the shadows watching him. She would have felt creepy for it, but he was playing with his eyes closed so it’s not like he could see her anyway.

Sophie couldn’t say how long she stood there, listening to the violin boy turn the otherwise unremarkable night into something magical. Five minutes passed, then ten, and still the boy played. He must have played at least three different songs, but he blended them together so seamlessly that Sophie couldn’t pick out where one song ended and the next began. Her feet were numb in her boots and she was shivering when she finally gathered up the will to pull herself away. She fished in her pocket for a few pound coins and dashed across the street, intent on dropping them into the violinist’s case before she left. His case wasn’t open when she got there, so she crouched and gently placed them on top before setting off at a brisk pace, trying to rub warmth back into her hands.

The music cut off and suddenly the spell was broken.

“Wait! Excuse me, Miss! Wait!”

Sophie turned, tensing, and watched as the violin boy jogged towards her. She tightened her grip on her keys, her heart beating fast. The boy must have sensed her discomfort, because he stopped a good five feet away and offered her a smile.

“You dropped these.”

She looked down to his outstretched hand. He held her coins out to her.

Sophie shook her head at him, “They were for you. You played so beautifully.”

Now it was the boy’s turn to shake his head.

“That’s a very kind gesture Miss, but I can’t accept. Music is a gift that should be shared. Also,” he adds with a bashful grin, “I don’t have a busking license.”

But Sophie refused to take the money back. He had earned it and shouldn’t one good deed beget another? Sophie argued this point with him until finally he seemed to reach a decision. He looked up and down the street before his eyes settled on a shadow in one of the darkened alcoves. A person, Sophie realized. He trotted over to the figure and knelt beside them, speaking in a low voice. He dropped the coins into the person’s hands and then made his way back to Sophie, grinning.

“There,” he said, “It’s as you said. One good deed should beget another.”

Sophie shook her head again. The violin boy was like someone you read about in a human-interest article, not someone you met in real life. She generally had a strong distrust of strangers, especially strangers of the male variety, but she felt herself softening to this boy.

“I’m Sophie,” she said, suddenly feeling shy.

“James,” he replied, “but everyone calls me Jem.”

“Well Jem,” Sophie said, “I run a bakery over by The London Institute of Fine Arts if you ever find yourself in the area.”

“I actually attend The Institute,” James admitted with a humble smile.

Sophie laughed, “Of course you do, if you play like that.”

Jem bowed his head graciously.

She found herself telling Jem about her bakery and balancing work with her night classes as he packed up his violin. Usually she wasn’t this talkative, but Jem was sincere and asked about her life and she felt herself opening up to him. He offered to walk her home since The Institute was in the same direction anyway. On the way he told her about attending The Institute and teaching violin lessons to cover the rent and the antics of his crazy best friend and flat mate.

He had come into the bakery the next day and again that weekend, and soon he was a regular. Over the past three years they had gradually become close friends. Sophie would be lying if she said there wasn’t a time when she hoped they might be something more, but it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen once she saw the way Jem looked at Will. When he was in the room it was like no other person existed for Jem. Until Tessa.

She glanced at their table again between taking orders. Jem was talking animatedly, but he glanced over and caught her looking at them. She blushed, but he smiled and nodded his head at her before turning back to Tessa. Tessa turned to see what had caught his attention. How mortifying. She was going to think Sophie was jealous, what with her whole outburst at the table before Jem got there. Well, she had meant it. Jem had been through enough pining after Will all these years. She snuck another glance at their table. Jem looked so happy, so vibrant. Sophie took another look at Tessa. She was fairly plain looking. Tallish, perhaps, and her hair had a nice curl to it, but that was all. She’d seemed nice enough when they’d talked earlier, and Jem was clearly crazy about her. She watched Jem throw his head back in a laugh and hoped Tessa wouldn’t break his heart.

* * *

 

“—and that is how Sophie and I met.”

Tessa smiles warmly, “She sounds wonderful.”

“She is,” Jem smiles back.

“And what about Will?”

“What?”

“How did you meet Will?”

“He never told you?”

“He mentioned boarding school, but that was it.”

“Sounds like William,” Jem says, chuckling and leaning back in his chair.

“What do you mean?”

“He never wants people to see the good in him,” at Tessa’s confused look, he leans back in and in a conspiratorial tone tells her, “We first met when he saved my life.”

“What?!”

Jem grins.

“I have asthma. Bad. It was worse when I was younger, but even now I have to carry an inhaler with me in case of an attack. I was new to the school. My father is a diplomat in China, and I was born there. My parents decided it would be good for me to get some English education, so when I was twelve, I was sent to my uncle and went to boys boarding school. It was my first day, I didn’t have any friends, and I hadn’t yet realized how terrible twelve-year-olds can be.” Jem’s expression darkens, “Some of the boys weren’t very pleasant. They called me—well, rude names,” Jem gestured to his face, “racial slurs and the like.”

“Jem, that’s awful!” Tessa said, reaching for his hand. She hadn’t even realized she was doing it. He seemed surprised when she took his hand in hers, but he curled his fingers with her own, pleased.

“It gets worse,” he shrugs. Tessa thought it was probably supposed to look nonchalant, but his shoulders were too tight to pull it off. “At recess that first day a group of them, maybe three or four boys, decided that they could beat the Chinese out of me.”

Tessa winces. She’d seen enough bullies in school while she was in New York to know that children were merciless.

“I wasn’t defenseless, my father had taught me to wrestle and my mother insisted I attend martial arts classes with the other Chinese children, to make friends, but my asthma—well. At any rate, when they realized I wasn’t going down without a fight, all of them came at me at once. They weren’t holding back. I thought I was going to die, and then my asthma started acting up.” Jem’s face is carefully blank as he tells this story, and Tessa’s heart is breaking for him, so she squeezes his hand in sympathy. It draws Jem back a little and he offers her a small smile. “That was when Will showed up. I was gasping on the ground, covering my head. I couldn’t breathe. My vision was going in and out, so I didn’t see what happened. One moment I was surrounded, being kicked and hit, and then it stopped. Will sat me up, told me to put my head between my knees and ran off to get a teacher. I never got the chance to thank him, he ran off.”

Tessa allowed a moment’s pause, “then what?”

Jem smiled, “I saw him later, in the hallway. He had a black eye and a gash along his cheek. I tried to talk to him, to thank him, but he cussed me out and told me he didn’t know what I was talking about. I thought maybe I was wrong, that I’d been kicked in the head too many times and mixed up his face, that maybe he was one of the boys that beat me up, so I let him walk away.”

Tessa shook her head in disbelief.

“Then, a week later, I was walking around the grounds after dinner and I came across William and Archie Dearborn arguing. About me. About how I didn’t belong at a school for English boys.” Jem stopped. Tessa could see his jaw working, but after a moment he continued, “and then Will was shouting in Welsh and punched Archie in the face. Broke his nose, blood everywhere. It was a beautiful right hook. Sometimes I still dream about it,” Jem jokes. “Anyway, I tried to stop Will as he stalked away, but he shoved me into the wall and kept walking.”

“What?! That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I know,” Jem laughed, “that’s the thing about William, sometimes you just have to embrace the nonsense.”

“So, what did you do?”

“Nothing. I minded my own business. For months, I had no friends but my violin. I studied and ate and slept and played music. Very good for the grades, very bad for the mental health. But I kept an eye on Will. I was curious. Was he good or bad? Did he hate me, or just hate the other boys more? Will never hung around with any of the other boys. He was always tucked away with a book. He’d hide in trees at recess, read at dinner, and lash out at every single person who tried to talk to him. Everyone. Then, towards the end of term, I got complacent. The other boys mostly ignored me, so I thought they’d gotten bored of bullying me. I forgot to lock my door one night.”

“Oh no,” Tessa said, dread curdling knots in her stomach. She didn’t like where this story was going. Jem nodded.

“I guess they got tired of waiting for me to give in and leave the school. Or maybe they were just biding their time, waiting for me to slip up. Either way, that night when I went to the shower I forgot to lock my door. When I came back, the door was cracked open. I was sure I’d shut it. I thought it could have been the wind, or a draught, so I pushed open the door—”

Tessa let out a little, “Jem, no,” then blushed, realizing how caught up in the story she was. Jem didn’t notice, his gaze was distant, like he was still seeing that room, like part of him was always seeing it.

“—and there was a body on the floor.”

Tessa gasped.

Jem’s voice turns strained, “it was Will’s body. I thought he was dead. I was sure of it. And then I thought whoever had killed him had left him there to frame me. That was my first thought Tessa,” he looked at her with desperate eyes, “I thought about myself before I thought of helping him.”

Tessa shakes her head, “Jem, you were twelve—”

“Then he moaned Tessa. God, you should have heard the sound that he made,” Jem shudders, “it still haunts me.”

Tessa squeezed his hand tighter.

“I ran over and tried to help him up, but he was hurt too badly, and I didn’t know what to do. I told him I was going to get a teacher, but when I went to stand up he had an iron grip on my arm.” He was looking at her intensely now, like he was gauging her reaction, “He asked me not to leave. He made me promise. But I couldn’t just let him die. I thought he was dying. What would you have done, if there was a boy dying on your floor?”

“I don’t know,” Tessa whispered, shaking her head. It was unimaginable.

“I lied.”

She could see the fissure in his heart where the words lived.

“I promised him I would stay, and the moment he was unconscious I ran to find a teacher. They had to call the ambulance. He had two broken ribs, a concussion, a broken nose, and internal bleeding.”

“Oh my God.”

“He told me later, that he’d heard them planning it in the hallway. He’d gone to my room to try and warn me, but I wasn’t there. It was dark, he hadn’t turned on a light when he came in—they thought he was me Tessa.”

Tessa opened and closed her mouth, unsure what to say. “I’m so sorry,” she finally managed, “Jem, I’m so, so sorry you both had to go through that.”

Jem let out a heavy breath, “The boys who did it got expelled. Will was in the hospital for three days, bed rest for weeks. I brought him books. Heaps of books,” a hint of a smile snuck its way back onto Jem’s face. “All he could do for weeks was sleep and read. He says it was the best time of his life,” Jem adds with a small, sad chuckle. “Anyway, at the end of the term he asked if I wanted to be his roommate. I asked if he wasn’t worried that someone would break in and mistake him for me and beat him up again, and he laughed Tessa. _Laughed_ ,” Jem shook his head in bemusement, “I thought he was absolutely off his rocker, but he said now he knew what to expect and when I told him that I couldn’t willingly put him in that kind of danger, he insisted that I owed him and this was the price I had to pay.”

“So you became roommates?”

“Well I couldn’t tell him no, he’d already saved my life, defended my honor, and taken a beating that was meant for me,” Jem laughed.

“But what about how he treated you before, shoving you into walls and all? What was that about?”

Jem shook his head, “He was going through some things at the time, he didn’t want to get close to anybody. He thought if he was a prat I wouldn’t want to be his friend. But he’s a good person, deep down.”

“Sophie said she didn’t get on with him.”

Jem smiled, “Well, as we’ve seen, Will can be a hard pill to swallow.”

Tessa smiled tightly and nodded. Jem tipped his head to one side, regarding her.

“What was that?”

“What?” she blinked innocently.

“That look that you just had when I said Will was a hard pill to swallow. It was a very knowing look Tessa, what did he do?”

“Nothing, he didn’t do anything.”

Jem kept his steady gaze on her. He had such an open face and he’d just told her his whole tragic backstory, she wanted to open up to him. But it would sound stupid, what was she supposed to say, Will didn’t want to be her friend? That was a completely valid thing too! He was allowed to not want to be her friend. Jem’s warm eyes won out.

Tessa sucked in a breath and let it out in a woosh, “Fine. It’s stupid. Will and I had been studying together, and I _thought_ we were getting to be friends. We’d hung out a couple times with Magnus and I thought—well anyway, he wasn’t in class on Monday and then on Wednesday he didn’t sit with me. I finally caught him on Thursday to ask him about it, and he looked—”

“Haggard?” Jem suggested.

“Yes!”

Jem nodded, “I’ve noticed that too.”

“And I asked him if he was upset with me,” Tessa continued, “but he said no. Then, like a child, I asked why he didn’t sit with me in class and he told me to grow up.” Tessa’s cheeks burned.

Jem raised an eyebrow, “He told you to grow up?”

Tessa nodded.

Jem released her hand and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes.

“William is a bastard.”

Tessa widens her eyes in shock. She’d just heard a whole heart-rending story about their friendship and now Jem was saying he was a bastard?

Jem cracked an eye open and grinned at her. “Just because he’s my best friend doesn’t mean that I can’t see him for who he is.” Jem sits back up and places his hand on the table stretched out towards her, she puts her hand in his without thinking. “Will says and does stupid things. Cruel things. He’s afraid of letting people get close. But he’s a good person Tessa, I know it.” Tessa finds herself nodding. “I’ve noticed he hasn’t been himself lately. Or rather, he’s more like his old self. Sulky, brooding, hiding away with his books all the time. Let me talk to him.”

“It’s alright, Jem. He’s not obligated to be my friend, he doesn’t have to like me. I thought—but I was wrong. I misread the situation, that’s all.”

Jem looks unconvinced.

“He told me how much he liked you. He thinks you’re great.”

Tessa pulls back in shock, “But he said—”

“He wasn’t lying to me; I could tell he meant it. Which means, he was lying to you. But the question is, why?” Jem shakes his head. “I’ve known him for almost ten years and I still can’t figure Will out.”

Tessa smiles.

“Enough about Will,” Jem says, “can I get you tea? Coffee? Sophie does an excellent hot chocolate.”

Tessa makes a face, “I can’t stand chocolate.”

Jem laughs, “tea?”

“Please,” she smiles at him, “Earl Grey?”

“Coming right up.”

Tessa tries to absorb all the information she’s learned while they’ve been chatting. Sophie and Jem. Jem and Will. Will. She keeps imagining a young Will, bleeding on Jem’s floor, making him promise not to leave. The way Jem’s heart clearly broke when he remembered lying to Will. The way Will pushed Jem away until one day he didn’t. Maybe that’s what was happening with them. Maybe she needed to try harder, to break down Will’s walls. Or, her brain reminded her, maybe he was just being polite the whole time and he doesn’t actually want to be your friend. He was only being nice because he so clearly loves Jem. The thought spurs something in the back of her brain, something she thought she should remember, a puzzle piece begging to be snapped into place. Jem returns with their teas and she forgets the thought entirely.

“I’m sorry, about earlier,” Jem says sheepishly, “kind of a heavy story for a first date. I probably should have kept it to ‘Will stopped me from getting beat up,’ huh?”

Tessa laughs, “Not at all! I want to know all about you.” The words slip out before Tessa has a moment to think about how they sound. She blushes brightly, but Jem smiles at her just as radiantly.

“Me too. What about you? How did you meet Will? What’s New York like, and you brother?”

“Oh, I actually collided with Will in a hallway on the first day of class. He basically gave me a concussion then showed me the way to class,” Tessa laughed. “New York is loud, and smells, but it has excellent pizza. And bagels. The bagels just aren’t the same here. Also Mexican food,” Tessa says dreamily, “there’s great Mexican food. I mean, I’m sure it’s better in like, Texas, or somewhere down south, but anywhere’s gotta be better than England. No offense,” she adds quickly.

Jem laughs, “None taken.”

“Nate is…Nate. He’s my older brother. We were raised by our aunt, but she passed away about six months ago.”

“Tessa, I’m so sorry.”

Tessa nods, her throat choked up. She takes a big gulp of her tea and blinks a few times. She hated crying in public, hated crying in general. She would not do it on her first date. “Anyway, Nate was always a bit of a lose canon. He was always looking to make a quick buck. Lemonade stands, mowing yards, Ponzi schemes, he did it all. Got into a bit of trouble for the last one, he fell in with the wrong crowd, got sucked in, so when he got accepted to the business school, Aunt Harriet helped him restart in London. He’s better now. He's doing well in the business school, is dating some high society girl whose family owns a wedding dress empire or something like that. I think he’s happy.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you happy?” Jem is looking in her eyes again, that intense look like he’s seeing all of her, her thoughts and fears and hopes. He’s looking at her in a way that makes her want to tell the truth. She thinks about her answer before she says it.

“Yes, I think I am. I’ve always dreamed of going to The Institute. I had a poster on my wall since before I even started really looking at colleges. I’ve always wanted to go into publishing. I want to help make books, plant stories in the world and watch them bloom, watch them change the world.”

“I have no doubt that you will Theresa Gray.”

The way he says her name sends a thrill through her chest. They talk for hours, through two pots of tea and a whole plate of scones. By the end, they’ve talked right through lunch and Jem is apologizing that he has a violin lesson that he has to teach.

“But, I’d like to have the pleasure of meeting you for coffee on a regular basis,” Jem adds, blushing.

“I’d like that,” Tessa grins.

“Actually, Will and I have a standing movie night on Fridays, maybe you could join us?”

“Tonight?”

“Is that too much? It is isn’t it, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you—”

“No, it’s just, I don’t want to intrude on your and Will’s tradition. He’s already upset with me, so—”

Jem shakes his head, “I don’t think he is Tessa. I think he’s quite fond of you. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s going on with him. Maybe you could come next week?”

“If he’s really not upset with me, I’ll join you guys for movie night.”

Jem’s smile is so big it looks like it might break his face in half, “It’s a date.”

Date. What a wonderful word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I officially graduated university!!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Also, I finally got this chapter up! DOUBLE WOOOOOO!!!!  
> Thank you so much for your patience with this story! You guys are all amazing <3 As always, please feel free to leave kind/constructive comments and let me know what you think :)
> 
> Also, also, I really struggle with maintaining a tense throughout this piece. What is that? Why can't I keep up a tense??? What tense is this story in??????????????? #writingstruggles


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